INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADAPTIVE CONTROL AND SIGNAL PROCESSING

Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425

Published online 2 August 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/acs.2319

A globally convergent wind speed estimator for

wind turbine systems

Romeo Ortega 1, * ,† , Fernando Mancilla-David 2 and Fernando Jaramillo 1

1 Laboratoire des Signaux et Systèmes, Supelec, Plateau du Moulon, 91192 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
2 Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO 80217, USA

SUMMARY
An estimator of the wind speed of a wind turbine coupled to a generator is proposed in this paper. Wind
speed enters into the generator dynamics through a highly nonlinear function; hence, we are confronted with
a difficult problem of estimation of a nonlinearly parameterized system. To solve this problem, we use the
technique of immersion and invariance, recently introduced in the literature. It is assumed that the rotor
speed and electrical torque of the generator are measured, which is the case for the machines typically used
in this application. The result is of interest for the design of controllers of maximum power extraction, where
the knowledge of the wind speed is necessary to express the control objective as a speed tracking problem.
Detailed computer simulations are presented to assess the performance of the proposed estimator. Copyright
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 28 January 2011; Revised 7 June 2012; Accepted 25 June 2012

KEY WORDS: identification; nonlinearly parameterized systems; adaptive control; control of windmill
systems

1. INTRODUCTION

Wind power is becoming increasingly popular around the world because of its low footprint on the
environment. Countries such as Denmark, Germany, Spain, USA, and others have launched aggres-
sive policies in order to drastically increase the wind power penetration in their energy portfolio for
electricity generation [1]. Wind turbines have three main operating regions.
 (Region 1) When the turbine is stopped or just starting up.
 (Region 2) When the objective is to extract the maximal power from the wind (also called
below rated or partial load).
 (Region 3) When, for safety reasons due to the high wind, the turbine must limit the captured
wind power (also called above rated or full load).
See [2–8] and references therein for further details. Our interest in this paper concerns the sec-
ond operating mode. In this case, because we want to operate the system at the point of maximum
power extraction, the knowledge of the wind speed, which is usually not available for measurement,
is essential.
Several publications have appeared in the literature attempting to control windmill systems in
Region 2 without velocity measurement. In [6], a provably stable adaptive controller to directly
adjust the torque gain of a variable speed wind turbine is proposed. No attempt is made to estimate
the wind speed; instead, concavity of the power coefficient function is assumed to adapt the gain

*Correspondence to: Romeo Ortega, Laboratoire des Signaux et Systèmes, Supelec, Plateau du Moulon, 91192
Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
† E-mail: ortega@lss.supelec.fr

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

414 R. ORTEGA, F. MANCILLA-DAVID AND F. JARAMILLO

of a switching torque—that intrinsically injects high gain in the loop. Another drawback of this
approach, intrinsic to all extremum-seeking algorithms, is the generation of an uncontrollable oscil-
latory behavior around the maximum point. In [9], the well-known passivity-based and sliding mode
control techniques are used to provide some guidelines for the controller design. Unfortunately, as
indicated by the authors, the assumptions required by these techniques are not satisfied and the con-
troller is designed invoking some approximations, with the wind speed (indirectly) reconstructed
with an approximate differentiator.
Estimation of the wind speed is complicated because it enters into the (mechanical) dynamics
in a nonlinear way. Estimation of nonlinearly parameterized systems is a widely open research
area—for which, besides practically questionable high-gain designs, almost no theoretical results
are available in the literature, see [10] for further details. To overcome the nonlinearity problem,
three approaches have been adopted: (1) assuming a static relation between electrical power produc-
tion and wind speed; (2) differentiating the generator speed and then solving an algebraic equation;
and (3) designing observer-like estimators based on (standard or extended) Kalman filtering, see
[11] for a recent survey of the literature. To the best of our knowledge, no scheme has been reported
that guarantees a consistent estimation (for the original system dynamics) that, as is well–known, is
necessary for high-performance controller designs. The main contribution of the paper is the devel-
opment of a wind speed estimator for the full nonlinear dynamical model, which is proven to be
consistent under a monotonicity assumption that is verified in several practical situations.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the dynamic model considered in the
paper, followed by the estimation problem formulation in Section 3 and its solution in Section 4.
Section 5 provides simulation results that illustrate the performance of the estimator. Finally,
Section 6 wraps-up the paper with some concluding remarks and future research work.

2. MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF THE WINDMILL SYSTEM

The windmill system considered in the paper consists of a wind turbine and a generator. The
mechanical power available at the wind turbine shaft is given by‡
1 3
Pw D ACp ./vw , (1)
2
where  is the air density, A is the area swept by the blades, Cp ./ is the power coefficient, and vw
is the wind speed. The power coefficient is a function of the blades’ tip speed , which is defined as
r!m
 WD , (2)
vw
with r as the blades’ radius and !m as the shaft’s rotational speed.
The power coefficient is also a function of the blade pitch angle, see for example, [5]. This signal
is a control variable that is used when the turbine operates in Regions 1 and 3. Because we are inter-
ested in this paper, in the turbine operating in Region 2, we have omitted this dependence. As will
become clear in the following, this signal can also be included without affecting our derivations.
The shape of the function Cp ./ depends on the geometry of the windmill. Figure 1 shows a typ-
ical curve that can be obtained from experimental measurements.§ Clearly, the operating region for
the blades’ tip speed is restricted to an interval Œ0, M , M > 0, such that
8
< D 0 for  D 0
Cp ./ > 0 for  2 .0, M / (3)
: D 0 for  D  .
M

The mechanical dynamics of the generator are described by

J !P m D Tm  Te , (4)

‡
All constants defined in the paper are positive. Interested readers are referred to [7] and [5] for further details on models
of windmill systems.
§
In this, and all the remaining plots, the function Cp ./ given in (23) is used.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
 A GLOBALLY CONVERGENT WIND SPEED ESTIMATOR 415

Figure 1. Power coefficient for a typical windmill.

where J > 0 is the rotor inertia, which is assumed known, Te is the electrical torque, and Tm is the
mechanical torque applied to the windmill shaft that readily follows from (1)
Pw
Tm D .
!m
Throughout the paper, the following assumption—always verified in practice—is used.

Assumption 1
min
The motor rotates in the same direction with a minimal, positive speed. That is, there exists !m > 0,
such that
min
!m .t / > !m , (5)
for all t > 0.

For future reference, it is convenient to define the key function

3  
1 A vw r!m
Tm D Cp DW ˆ.!m , vw /. (6)
J 2J !m vw
As indicated in the Introduction, we are interested in Region 2, where we want to operate the
system at the point of maximum power extraction,
? WD arg max Cp ./,


a constant that is typically known. If vw is known, the speed of maximum power extraction is defined
using (2) as
? vw ?
!m WD  . (7)
r
Given an estimate of vw , say vO w , the control task boils down to regulation of the shaft’s speed !m
around a reference speed
d vO w ?
!m D  . (8)
r
In the nonadaptive case, vO w is fixed to some a-priori (constant) estimate. In this paper, a wind
speed estimator is proposed to generate an asymptotically consistent, online, estimate vO w . That is,
an estimate verifying
lim vO w .t / D vw ,
t !1

ensuring that the reference speed converges to its optimal value, and maximum power extraction is
(asymptotically) guaranteed.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
416 R. ORTEGA, F. MANCILLA-DAVID AND F. JARAMILLO

3. WIND SPEED ESTIMATION PROBLEM

To formulate the estimation problem, the following assumptions are needed.

Assumption 2
The power coefficient is a known, smooth, function Cp W Œ0, M  ! RC , which verifies (3) and
8
< > 0 for  2 Œ0, ? /
0
Cp ./ D 0 for  D ? (9)
: < 0 for  2 .? ,  ,
M

where ./0 denotes differentiation.

Assumption 3
The wind speed vw is an unknown positive constant.

Assumption 4
The electrical torque Te and the motor speed wm are measurable.

Problem formulation. Given the systems (4) and (6), verifying Assumptions 1–4, design an online
estimate of the wind speed, vO w , such that under some suitable conditions, the parameter estimator
is asymptotically consistent.
Some remarks regarding the assumptions are in order.
(R1) Concerning Assumption 2, as indicated earlier, the shape of Cp ./ may be obtained from
experimental data.¶ Furthermore, the conditions imposed on its derivative are consistent
with the physical operation of the windmill. Namely, that power increases with the blade’s
tip speed up to a maximum point,
Cp? WD Cp .? /,
after which it starts decreasing. From the analytical viewpoint, this is a critical assumption
that ensures some monotonicity conditions of an associated function that are needed for a
proper behavior of the estimator.
(R2) The assumption of constant wind speed may seem stringent, particularly for its application
in maximum power point tracking controllers. However, we propose an online estima-
tor that, as is well-known [12], is able to track slowly-varying parameters and filter low
amplitude oscillation noise. The time scale separation between the wind dynamics and the
mechanical and electrical signals of the windmill systems is an additional argument to jus-
tify the assumption. See also Section 6 and [13] for some comments on the case of wind
gusts and turbulent wind.
(R3) Regarding Assumption 4, measuring wm is a standard practice in windmill systems.
Moreover, the knowledge of Te is available in permanent magnet synchronous or doubly
fed induction generators, which are the machines typically used in this application. Indeed,
for the former, Te is given by
3P
Te D
 iq , (10)
2 2
where iq is the current in the dq reference frame,  is the permanent magnetic flux
produced by the rotor magnets, and P is the number of pole pairs. For doubly fed induction
generators, the torque is defined as
 
Te D Lsr isq ird  isd irq ,
with Lsr as the mutual inductance and .isd , isq / and .ird , irq /, respectively, are the stator
and rotor currents—that are measurable in winded-rotor machines.

¶
As will become clear later, the estimator is also implementable if the function is given in tabular form.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
 A GLOBALLY CONVERGENT WIND SPEED ESTIMATOR 417

4. MAIN RESULT

As can be seen from (4) and (6), wind speed enters into the system in a highly nonlinear way.
Moreover, because the basic objective of the control is to track the maximum power point in the
face of (slowly) varying wind speeds, the motor speed—and consequently, —will take values in
wide ranges, stymieing the application of standard linear estimation techniques for the linearized
system [11].

4.1. Immersion and invariance parameter estimators

In [10, 14, 15], a new framework to design parameter estimators and adaptive controllers for non-
linearly parameterized nonlinear systems has been proposed. The key step is the construction of
a monotone mapping, which explicitly depends on some of the estimator tuning parameters. The
construction relies on the use of the immersion and invariance (I&I) ideas introduced in [16] for
the design of adaptive stabilizing controllers and observers. See [17] for a recent overview of the
applications of I&I.
The I&I identification technique of [14] is applied here to solve the wind estimation problem.
A simplified version of the main result of [14]—that is suitable for our objective—is given in the
succeeding text. The interested reader is referred to this reference for the proof of the proposition,
and to [10, 15], for further details and extensions of I&I estimation and adaptive control.

Proposition 1
Consider the system
xP D F .t / C ˆ.x, /, (11)
where x 2 R, the function F .t / and the mapping ˆ W R  R ! R are known, and  2 R is a
constant unknown parameter. Assume that there exists a smooth mapping ˇ W R ! R such that the
parameterized mapping
Qx W R ! R
(12)
Qx ./ WD ˇ 0 .x/ˆ.x, /
is strictly monotone increasing.|| The I&I estimator
h  i
P
O I D ˇ 0 .x/ F .t / C ˆ x, O I C ˇ.x/

O D O I C ˇ.x/, (13)
is asymptotically consistent. That is,
lim O .t / D . (14)
t !1
   
for all x.0/, O I .0/ 2 R  R, and F .t / such that x.t /, O .t / exist for all t > 0.

Notice that Assumption 2 of Proposition 1 in [14] is conspicuous by its absence in the proposition
above. This stems from the fact that, for the scalar parameter case, this assumption is implied by the
strict monotonicity condition.

4.2. Verifying the monotonicity condition

We will apply Proposition 1 to systems (4) and (6) with vw as the unknown parameter, the state
x D !m , and
1
F .t / WD  Te .t /, (15)
J

||
That is, for all a, b 2 R, a > b, and all x 2 R, the mapping satisfies Qx .a/ > Qx .b/.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
418 R. ORTEGA, F. MANCILLA-DAVID AND F. JARAMILLO

where Te is viewed as a function of time. The key step is to construct a function ˇ./, such that the
parameterized function
Q!m W RC ! R
Q!m .vw / D ˇ 0 .!m /ˆ.!m , vw /
is strictly monotonically increasing. In this scalar case, the latter is true if and only if the derivative
of the function is positive, which is computed as
    
0 0 @ˆ.!m , vw / Ar 0 3vw r!m 0 r!m
Q!m .vw / D ˇ .!m / D vw ˇ .!m / Cp  Cp .
@vw 2J r!m vw vw
Obviously, because vw is a positive constant, the monotonicity of Q!m .vw / is determined by the
product of the sign of ˇ 0 .!m / and the sign of the term in brackets, which we write in the more
convenient form
3
./ WD Cp ./  Cp0 ./. (16)

Now, because ˇ.!m / is used in the construction of the estimator (13), it is clear that it cannot depend
on the unknown vw . Consequently, the monotonicity of Q!m .vw / is (essentially) determined by
./. See Figure 2 for one possible scenario.
The lemma in the following plays a central role in our developments.

Lemma 1
Consider the function ./ defined by (16), with Cp ./ satisfying Assumption 1. There exists two
constants, c1 , c2 , with
0 < c1 6 c2 < ? ,
such that
./ > 0 for  2 Œ0, c1 / [ .c2 , M .

Proof
First, note that
lim ./ D 2Cp0 .0/ > 0,
!0

which follows from Assumption 2 and direct application of L’Hopital’s Lemma to (16). Invoking
continuity establishes the existence of c1 > 0 such that k./ > 0 for all  2 Œ0, c1 /. See Figure 2.
Let us prove now the existence of c2 < ? , such that k./ > 0 for all  2 .c2 , M . First, from
the facts that Cp0 ./ 6 0 for all  > ? and 3 Cp ./ > 0 for all , we conclude that ./ > 0 for
all  2 Œ? , M . Now, again from continuity and the fact that Cp0 .? / D 0, we conclude that there

3
Figure 2. Plots of C ./,
 p
Cp0 ./, and ./ for the case when ./ changes sign.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
 A GLOBALLY CONVERGENT WIND SPEED ESTIMATOR 419

exists c2 < ? such that k./ > 0 for all  2 .c2 , ? . Putting both arguments together proves
the claim.
Now, assume there is no zero crossing of ./. Then, we can set c1 D c2 to be any constant in
the interval .0, M /. In that case, ./ > 0 for all  2 Œ0, M . On the other hand, if there is a zero
crossing—obviously, in the interval .0, ? /—there are necessarily (at least) two of them, because
k.0/, k.M / > 0. Selecting c1 and c2 to be, respectively, the smallest and largest of these roots
establishes that c1 < c2 , completing the proof. 

We now recall that our interest is to study the monotonicity of the function Q!m .vw /. In partic-
ular, we want to define intervals for !m where the function is increasing, which is an immediate
corollary of Lemma 1, (2), and Assumption 1.

Corollary 1
Fix ˇ.!m / such that sign ˇ 0 .!m / > 0. The function Q!m .vw / verifies either one of the
following properties.
P1 Q!m .vw / is monotonically increasing for all !m .
c2
P2 There exists a positive constant !m < !m
such that Q!m .vw / is monotonically increasing
c2 ?
for all !m > !m —where !m is defined in (7) and
c2 c2 vw
!m WD , (17)
r
with c2 defined in Lemma 1.

4.3. I&I Estimator

We are in position to present the main result of the paper.

Proposition 2
Consider the systems (4) and (6), verifying Assumptions 1–4 and Te .t / such that the solutions !m .t /
exists for all t > 0. The I&I estimator

 
PvO I D  1 Te  ˆ !m , vO I C !m
w w
J
I
vO w D vO w C !m , (18)
where  > 0 is an adaptation gain, is asymptotically consistent, that is,
lim vO w .t / D vw ,
t !1

if either one of the conditions in the following holds.

C1 The power coefficient verifies
3
Cp ./ > Cp0 ./, (19)

for all  2 .0, ? /.
C2 The generator speed remains in the range
c2
!m .t / > !m (20)
c2
for all t > 0, where !m is defined in (17).

Proof
Set
ˇ.!m / D !m . (21)
From Corollary 1, we conclude that, if condition C1 is satisfied, the function Q!m .vw / is monotone
c2
for all !m . On the other hand, if condition C2 holds, it is monotone for !m > !m . The proof is
completed invoking Proposition 1 and replacing (15) and (21) in (13) to get (18). 

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
420 R. ORTEGA, F. MANCILLA-DAVID AND F. JARAMILLO

5. SIMULATION RESULTS

In this section ,we assess, via computer simulations, the performance of the wind speed estimator.
The objective of this section is twofold, on one hand, to check the behavior of the estimator when
the wind is not constant—which is an assumption made for the theoretical analysis. On the other
hand, it is well-known [12] that the performance of an estimator may be degraded when operating in
closed loop with a controller. To investigate this practically important issue, the proposed estimator
is used with the simplest proportional plus integral (PI) controller. For the sake of completeness, we
carry out a stability analysis of the nonadaptive PI controller. Finally, to answer the second issue
raised earlier, we compare the behavior of the nonadaptive and the (certainty equivalent) adaptive
PI controllers.
We adopt the simplified—but widely adopted, see for example, [2, 6] and references therein—
scenario that neglects the dynamics of the generator and its power converter and assumes that the
electrical torque Te is actually a control variable. It is well-known [5, 6] that, under this assumption,
2
the by-now classical !m -controller, which does not require the knowledge of the wind speed—yields
excellent performance, stemming from the fact that the resulting closed-loop system has a unique
asymptotically stable equilibrium in the operating region. Our intention here is not to compare the
2
performance of the !m -controller with other controllers but simply to illustrate the improvement of
the behavior of the simple PI controller when adaptation is added. Towards this end, a standard PI
controller around the rotor speed error is proposed. That is,
 
d
Te D KP !m  !m C KI
P D !m  !m
d
, (22)
d
where KP , KI > 0 are tuning gains and !m > 0 is either fixed to a constant value for the
nonadaptive PI controller via (8), or adjusted online using the estimated wind speed (18) for its
adaptive version.

5.1. Stability analysis of the fixed PI control

The nonadaptive PI enjoys the following stability properties.

Proposition 3
Consider the systems (4) and (6), verifying Assumptions 1–4 in a closed loop with the PI
controller (22).
(i) The system has a unique equilibrium point

 
d J d
! m D !m , D ˆ !m , vw .
KI
(ii) All trajectories are bounded and the system is ultimately bounded. That is, there exists time
tc > 0, such that
ˇ ˇ 1
ˇ dˇ
ˇ!m .t /  !m ˇ6 k
KP
ˇ ˇ
ˇ ˇ
ˇ .t /  J ˆ.! d , vw /ˇ 6 1 k,
ˇ KI m ˇ 2K
I

for all t > tc , where

3  ? 
Avw r!m
k WD min
Cp .
!m vw

(iii) There exists KPmin > 0 such that for all KP > KPmin , the equilibrium is asymptotically stable.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
 A GLOBALLY CONVERGENT WIND SPEED ESTIMATOR 421

Proof
Claim (i) follows immediately from inspection of (4), (6), and (22).
To prove (ii), we define the error signals
d
!Q m WD !m  !m
J  
Q WD  ˆ !md
, vw
KI
and consider the positive definite function
  1  
KI 1 K2
V !Q m , Q D !Q m 2
C !Q m Q C KI C P Q 2 ,
2 J J 2J
whose derivative, along the solutions of (4), (6), and (22), verifies
 
P KP 2 KP KI Q 2 KP Q h 
d
i
V D !Q m  C !Q m C ˆ.! m , vw /  ˆ ! m , vw
2J 2J 2 2J
 
KP 1 KP KI ˇˇ Q ˇˇ ˇˇ Q ˇˇ 1
6 j!Q m j j!Q m j  k  ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇ  k ,
2J KP 2J 2 2KI
where—to get the bound—we have used (6) and the fact that
  k
d
ˆ.!m , vw /  ˆ !m , vw 6 ,
2J
which follows from Figure 1 and (6). This establishes the claim in (ii).
Now, the linearization of the closed-loop system at the equilibrium point yields the system matrix
 KP @ˆ
 d 
 J C @! !m , vw KI
m ,
1 0
which is Hurwitz for sufficiently large KP , establishing the claim of (iii). 

5.2. Simulation results

The performance of the system is tested simulating step changes in the wind speed.** The gains of
the PI were selected using pole placement techniques after linearizing the system around the ini-
tial operating point, which is taken to be the one of the maximum power extraction. The parameter
, which essentially determines the speed of convergence of the estimator, was selected via trial-
and-error. All simulations are executed using the MATLAB-Simulink ® (Mathworks, Natick, MA)
software package.
As is customary, for the purposes of the simulation, we assume that the power coefficient is given
by the function
cp1  c 
p2
Cp ./ D e    cp3 C cp4 , (23)

where the coefficients cpi , i D 1, : : : , 4—that are wind turbine–specific but independent of vw and
!m —are known. These coefficients were taken from the benchmark problem of [18] and have the
following values: cp1 D 21, cp2 D 125.21, cp3 D 9.8, and cp4 D 0.0068. This yields ? D 8.1 and
Cp? D 0.48. The resulting function Cp ./ verifies the key inequality (19), hence, global convergence
of the estimator is ensured.
The effect of the adaption gain  on the estimator’s performance can be appreciated in Figure 3,
where the estimator was initialized with the real wind speed value, that is, vO w .0/ D vw .0/. As
the figure shows, a larger  increases the speed of convergence of the estimation process. Simu-
lations were also carried out adding noise to the wind speed to emulate wind gusts. Because no

** In [13], the estimator, together with a passivity-based controller, has been tested for more realistic wind profiles,
including gusts and turbulent wind.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
422 R. ORTEGA, F. MANCILLA-DAVID AND F. JARAMILLO

10.5
Actual
10 0.1
0.5
1
9.5

8.5

7.5

6.5
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

9
Actual
8.9 0.1
0.5
8.8 1

8.7
8.6
8.5
8.4
8.3
8.2
8.1
8

85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125

t (sec)

Figure 3. Performance of the estimator to step changes in the wind speed value for different values of 
(top) and a zoom (bottom).

10

−5

−10

−15

kp = 0.6 ki = 0.33
−20 kp = 4 ki = 2
kp = 11.67 ki = 14.83

−25
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Figure 4. Performance of the nonadaptive plus integral, speed deviations with respect to the optimal values
for different plus integral gains.

significant degradation of the estimators performance was observed, they are omitted for brevity. As
usual for online estimators [12],  should be selected as a trade-off between convergence speed and
noise filtering.
Figure 4 shows the response of the error between the optimal and the actual speed for the nonadap-
d
tive PI controller. The reference speed, !m , was fixed assuming that the wind is known at t D 0. The
initial condition of the speed was also selected corresponding to its optimal value, and the integrator
?
was initialized at zero, that is, !m .0/ D !m .0/ and .0/ D 0, respectively. As shown in the figure,

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
 A GLOBALLY CONVERGENT WIND SPEED ESTIMATOR 423

d ?
when the wind speed changes !m ¤ !m and the rotor speed that, as predicted by Proposition 3,
d
converges to !m , moves away from its optimal value of maximum power extraction. Moreover, the
figure shows that the transient performance is strongly dependent on the actual wind speed and its
change may induce instability of the closed-loop.

15

10

−5

−10 kp = 0.6 ki = 0.33

kp = 4 ki = 2
kp = 11.67 ki = 14.83
−15
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

−1
kp = 0.6 ki = 0.33
−2 kp = 4 ki = 2
kp = 11.67 ki = 14.83

80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150

t (sec)

Figure 5. Performance of the adaptive plus integral, speed deviations with respect to the optimal values for
different plus integral gains (top) and a zoom (bottom).

50

40

30

20

10

−10
6
50
8 40
30
10 20

Figure 6. Performance of the adaptive plus integral, with KP D 0.59, KI D 0.32,  D 1, and initial
conditions on a disk at the plane .0/ D 0.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
424 R. ORTEGA, F. MANCILLA-DAVID AND F. JARAMILLO

The performance of the certainty equivalent adaptive PI controller is shown in Figure 5, where we
have set vO w .0/ D vw .0/, and the same initial conditions for the speed and integral action as for the
nonadaptive case. As may be observed, the system behaves as desired, with the power coefficient
tracking its optimal value, and hence, maximum power is being (asymptotically) extracted for all
wind speeds. The global behavior of the adaptive PI controller is illustrated in Figure 6 where—for
a fixed set of PI and estimation gains—several trajectories starting on a disk at .0/ D 0 are shown
to converge to a unique equilibrium point. Unfortunately, no theoretical guarantee of convergence
of the adaptive PI is available at this point.

6. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

An estimator for the wind speed of a windmill system, with guaranteed convergence properties, has
been presented. The result is global if the power coefficient verifies (19). This condition can be eas-
ily checked from the experimental data. Moreover, the algorithm can be implemented numerically
from a tabular description of the function Cp ./. It is interesting to note that the normal operating
region for the wind turbine in Region 2 is such that (19) holds. Indeed, as explained in [5], in this
mode of operation, it is desirable to keep the, so-called, torque coefficient with a negative slope.
Now, the torque coefficient is defined as

1
CT ./ WD Cp ./.

It is easy to show that

CT0 ./ 6 0 ) .19/.

Therefore, in normal operation, our key condition is satisfied.

If (19) does not hold, we have to rely on the signal-dependent assumption (20) that cannot be
verified a-priori. Indeed, there is no way to guarantee that, in closed-loop operation, the speed
c2
!m .t / will remain above the value !m , which is furthermore not known. However, the proposition
?
guarantees that there is an interval, containing !m , where the speed estimation will ‘go in the right
direction’. Given the complexity of the problem, we tend to believe that there is no hope of getting
a global result without assumptions on Cp ./—like the one imposed here. It should be underscored
that the simulation results presented in Section 5, as well as the more recent realistic simulations of
[13], confirm the good behavior of the proposed estimator.
From Proposition 2, it is known that the estimation error decreases when Q!m .vw / is increasing.
It can also be shown [14] that the error will increase if Q!m .vw / is decreasing.†† In other words, if
(19) does not hold, the estimator will not behave correctly only in a finite interval of motor speeds
but will tend to converge to the true value outside this interval.‡‡ Interestingly, the “good’ intervals
include the low and high speed ranges, as well as the optimal speed. Unfortunately, this informa-
tion is not enough to predict the global behavior of the system—hence, the need for assumptions
(19) or (20).
Current research is under way to explore the possibility of introducing, in the spirit of [19],
a reparametrization of the wind speed to relax the conditions (19) or (20). Also, to improve the per-
formance of the overall system, we are investigating the use of other, possibly nonlinear, controllers
to replace the PI reported here. For instance, for stand-alone applications, in [13], the PI controller
is replaced by a nonlinear passivity-based controller designed taking into account the dynamics of
the generator and the power converter. Currently, we are investigating windmill systems connected
to the network as well as, in the spirit of [20], the effect of flexibility in the mechanical structure.
The results of these researches will be reported in the near future.

††
Changing the sign of  would correct the problem. Alas, these intervals are not known.
‡‡
Typically, there are only two positive roots of ./, hence, only one ‘bad’ interval. But the possibility of having more
than one cannot be ruled out without further assumptions on Cp ./.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs
 A GLOBALLY CONVERGENT WIND SPEED ESTIMATOR 425

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Fernando Mancilla-David acknowledges the University of Colorado Denver and the ‘Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique’ of France for supporting this research. The work of Fernando Jaramillo has been
supported by CONACyT, Mexico, and the French Embassy in Mexico.

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Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Adapt. Control Signal Process. 2013; 27:413–425
DOI: 10.1002/acs