2013 Eighth International Conference and Exhibition on Ecological Vehicles and Renewable Energies (EVER)

Development of real time Wind Turbine Emulator based on DC

Motor Controlled by PI regulator
S.KOUADRIA, S .BELFEDHAL, E.M. BERKOUK, Y. MESLEM

Abstract - This paper presents the development of Wind

Turbine Emulator (WTE) for wind energy conversion
systems (WECS), using a separately excited DC motor,
controlled by a chopper and real-time interface card.
The DC motor is controlled using PI regulator. The wind
turbine emulator system inc\udes wind speed profiles,
mathematical model of wind turbines, modeling of rotor
blade characteristics and modeling of rotor inertia. Wind
speed can be easily programmed. The proposed
approach was implemented on DSl104 real- time
interface card and Matlab/Simulink real-time control
programming. The experimental results show
performance of proposed WTS.
Keywords- wind Turbine Emulator, wind turbine, DC motor,
PI regulator, real- time control, DSI I 04.
I. INTRODUCTION
nergy shortage and environment pollution are the
E important problems for the human lives and social
development. Traditional energy sources (fossil fuels) such
as coal, oil and gas will be used out in a few years and will
cause serious environmental problems. So the renewable
energy, especially wind and solar energy have become more
and more considerable all over the world[I].
The development of renewable energies is a significant
challenge for the future. The wind energy is one of the most
promising energy resources, due to its freely available, clean
and renewable character. It can play a key role in solving the
world energy crisis. For this finality, it knows a very
significant development rate over the world. To study the
The wind power conversion system requires high wind
turbine emulator performance. At present, wind turbine
emulator has been a necessary tool for research laboratories
to enhance the quality of the wind energy research[3].
11. WIND TuRBINE MODEL
Wind turbine is the primary component of a wind energy
conversion system. According to the aerodynamic
characteristics of wind turbine, the output mechanical power
is given by [4].
1
P.v =-p1rR v,3 Cp(A,ß)
Z
the (1 )
2
Where p is the air density (kg/m3), R is the turbine radius
(m), v( is the wind velocity (m/s) and Cp is the power
coefficient. Power coefficient is defined as the ratio of the
turbine power to the power of wind stream. This definition
shows that power coefficient is a function of the tip speed
ratio (A) and the blade pitch angle (ß), being tip speed ratio
the ratio of the speed at the tip of the blade to wind velocity
[3].
(2)
VI
In general, the aerodynamic torque of the wind turbine can
be expressed as[5]
3
T =!.... p.1r.R .v,z . Cp(A,ß) (3)
IV 2 A
The performance coefficient is different for each turbine and
is relative to the tip speed ratio and pitch angle. A generic
equation is used to model Cp (ß, A). This equation, based on

( -.S.
steady state and dynamic behavior of a Wind Energy the modeling turbine characteristics, is [5][6][7][8]:
Conversion System (WECS) without the reliance on natural

J
1
wind resources and actual wind turbine, a system
representing the wind turbine and wind is essential [2].
Cp(A;ß)=�· C Ar -C3.ß-C4 Z' e � +C6·A (4)
Because the wind turbine is big and expensive, it is not
convenient to do the research in the practical wind farm [1]. With
The aim of this study is to develop experimental prototype 0.035
1
(5)
setup for a wind turbine emulator. We use a separately A+0.08.ß ß3 +1
excited DC motor which can simulate the real wind turbine
Table I gives the parameters Cl to C6. Figure.2 shows the
n the steady and dynamic state.
Cp (ß, A) characteristics for different values of the pitch
angle ß [6]. The maximum value of Cp (Cp max 0.48) is =

achieved for ß 0 and for A 8.12.

= =

S.Kouadria, Laboratory ofElectricalEngineering and Plasma,

Ibn Khaldoun University,Tiaret (kouadria.selman@gmail.com).
TABLE I: Parameters of the perfonnance coefficient
S.A.Belfedhal, Laboratory ofElectricalEngineering and Plasma,
Ibn Khaldoun University,Tiaret.(seifeddinebelfedhal@yahoo.fr)
E.M.Berkouk, Laboratory of Contral Pracess, ENP
Cl C2 C3 C4 C5 C6
Algiers.(emberkouk@yahoo.fr) 0.5176 116 0.4 5.0 2l.0 0.0068
Y.Meslem, Laboratory ofElectricalEngineering and Plasma,
Ibn Khaldoun University,Tiaret.( ymeslem@yahoo.fr)

978-1-4673-5271-0/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE

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---;: � 1-----1 Electrical
• Network
1 1 J,
�
1 Wind 1 •

.� I 1
•
� 1
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o

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•

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!
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0
1 �enerator
,f ·0.1 1
1
_____ -

----"'--�-'---'--'--'
·0.3 '-
o 10 15 20 25 30 Figure.2: Part ofthe chain conversion to emulate[16][17][18]
Tlp speed ratio

Figure.!: The typical performance coefficient curve

III. THE WIND-TURBINE EMULATOR
A Wind Turbine Emulator (WTE) is a piece of hardware that
represents the static and dynamic characteristics of an actual
wind turbine. Over the past years, researches, carried out on
WTE, have been abundant. Different kinds of prime movers
have been used in realizing WTE. [2].
There have been many studies on wind turbine
emulator[4][9][1O] based on induction motor [11][12][13],
Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (PMSM) [1] and
DC Motors [6][14] [15].
A DC motor is ideal from the standpoint of both control and
implementation, so most of the WTE is based on separately­
excited DC machine with controlled armature current [4].
A. Strategy emulation
The function of the DC motor is to emulate the aerodynamic
behavior and mechanical wind. This corresponds to the
emulation dimmed items in Figure.2 where the main
components of real wind system are presented. The shaded
part is replaced by the DC motor with its control.
B. A Machine Control Strategy
There are two main types of strategy emulation. The first is to
generate the rotational speed given by the numerical simulator,
and to control the speed of the DC motor, taking this speed as
a reference. In this strategy called "Tracking Speed Model" or
"Pursuing Speed Model", the value of the electromagnetic
torque produced by the generator (or its reference value) is
used by the emulator to generate speed value. In the second
strategy, the emulator uses the machine rotational speed signal
to generate a torque reference to the DC motor. The latter
strategy is the one used in our work.
The machine is controlled in torque. The reference torque to
which it is desired to control the current (torque image) of the
machine from the emulator model is given above.
The controller, used for this control (or check), is a
proportional integral because it is quick and easy to synthesize
and implement. [16][18]
The graph of the emulation scheme is shown in Figure. 4. The
wind turbine mathematical model is developed using suitable
equations given in [3][4][5][6][7][8]. The inputs of the model
are the wind speed, angular speed and pitch angle. The angular
speed is applied after proper gear conversion. The reference

Figure.3: Types of strategy emulation.

torque calculated from the model is multiplied with torque This allows the reproduction of the actual waveform of the
constant and gear ratio to calculate the reference current, aerodynamic torque of the wind turbine but on a reduced scale
which is compared with the actual DC motor armature current. [20].
The current error is tuned by PI controller. It is then compared, The test setup consists of the following:
with a high frequency ramp signal to generate PWM gate •DC motor with rated values shown in Table 11;
pulses to drive the power IGBT, which regulates the DC motor • Electronic power converter: three-phase diode rectifier and
armature voltage. The variation in armature voltage in turn
VSI composed of three IGBT modules;
controls the armature current in accordance with the reference
Electronic card with voltage sensors (model LEM LV 25-P)
current and the system reaches a steady state[19].
•

and current sensors (model LEM LA 55-P) for monitoring the

instantaneous values of the stator phase voltages and currents;
• Incremental encoder (model RS 256-499, 2500 pulses per
Wind �peed (vi round).
Reler..,e Torque WindTurbine

Model Pit,h Angle (PI • dSPACE card (model DSl104) with a PowerPC 604e at 400
MHz and a fixed-point digital signal processor (DSP)
w.
Gear Ratio TMS320F240
&

PWM
Relerence ( ",
Wlvelorm DeMOtO'
wrrefit
Generalar
CI",it
(urren,
loc;M Re",lator
DC/DC
Converter

Figure.4. Structure ofWind Turbine Emulator using separately excited DC

motor

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

In this section the proposed Wind Turbine Emulator has

been tested experimentally on a suitable test setup (Figure.6).
In order to emulate the real behavior of the wind turbine
with that of a DC machine, it is necessary to determine the
electromagnetic torque reference for the latter. The
electromagnetic torque reference which we want to control is
derived from the model of the turbine (Fig. 5). An adaptation
of the magnitude of the torque is carried out simply through
the gain which is the ratio of the rated power of the machine
Figure.6. Experimental setup of wind turbine Emulator
�DCM-nom
and that of the turbineG =

PT-nom

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Wind Tu rb ine model i
I Torq u e I ! Torq u e control of De m a c h i n e :
I.!!!!!!!,!!!!!!!,!!!,!!!,!!!!-!!!
!- !!!!!!
!! !,!!!!!!!!!!!,!!!!!!!!�!!!!!!!!�!!!!!!!!!!!,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!! !!!!!!,!!!!!! !! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I
!! !!!!!! !!!!!!!! � !!!! !!!!I!!!!!!'!!!!!!!!
!! !!!!! !I!! !!!!�!!!!!! � � ............................ .....•••••••••• J

Figure.5. Structure ofWind Turbine Emulator

 TAßLE II
PARAMETERS OF THE WIND TURBINE DC MOTOR
Equipment Parameter
E
Rated power P=!OkW,
gain of The gearbox G= 5.4,
.; 1500
Wind the turbine radius R=3 m; <I.l
<I.l
turbine Number of blade=3; 0..
The inertia of the turbine J=O.042 Kg.m';
rIJ 1000
Viscosity F=0.017 N.m. s·'. ';
c
Type SE2662-5E; o

De motor
separately-excited;
rated power: I kW;
.�
+-i 500
o
rated excitation voltage: 220V;
�
rated armature voltage: 220V;
operating mode: continuous;
rated armature current: 8.3A;
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
rated speed: 4000 rmp.
Time (s)
Figure.9: Variation of rotational speed ofthe DC motor.

13 ,--,---,---,---,---,--�---,---,

«:12
o

.� 11
"0
<I.l

:
15.10
rIJ

0..
� 9 ....

o �--�--�----��
o 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Time (s) 8 �--�--�--�
o 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Figure.7: Variation of armature current with reference current.

Time (s)
Figure.10: The responses of tip speed ratio A..

10 .--,---,---.--�--,---,
0.5

0..
J!! 8 U 0.4
E +-i
c
"0 <I.l
<I.l
. . 'ü 0.3
15. 6
�
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •H • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • , • •

rIJ
<I.l
"0
.5
S 0.2

� 4 ...
<I.l

� 0.1
p.

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Time (s)
Time (s)
Figure.8: Wind speed profile applied to the wind turbine Emulator.
Figure.!!: The responses of power coefficient Cp.
It is found that the measured current (torque) follows very [12] R. G. Oliveira, G. G. Panna, S. R. Silva, « Development oJ a wind
turbine simulator Jor wind energy conversion systems-experimental
weil the variations of the reference torque which has been
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We have shown a method for the realization of a Real Tim polytechnique de Grenoble, 2003.
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