Print Email Facebook Twitter Optimal Cross-Wind Towing and Power Generation with Tethered Kites Title Optimal Cross-Wind Towing and Power Generation with Tethered Kites Author Williams, P. Lansdorp, B. Ockels, W. Faculty Aerospace Engineering Department Aerospace Design, Integration and Operations Date 2007-08-01 Abstract Non-powered flight vehicles such as kites can provide a means of transmitting wind energy from higher altitudes to the ground via tethers. Although there have been many proposals for systems to extract wind energy from higher altitudes, this paper focuses on the use of a light lifting body at the end of a tether to generate useful power. Two major configurations are studied: 1) the kite is used to tow a ground vehicle in the cross-wind direction, 2) the kite is flown to generate power using a ground generator. In both cases, the useful work done by the kite is transmitted to the ground through the tether. Both applications require automatic control of the kite. A simplified system model is used to study the nature of the optimal trajectories of the system for different wind speeds. Numerical results illustrate that optimal power generation requires complex three-dimensional kite trajectories, whereas cross-wind towing requires much simpler trajectories. A feedback tracking controller is demonstrated for tracking the kite trajectories in the presence of unsteady winds. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e1c9e380-5170-45dc-a10c-664e1b388576 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type conference paper Rights (c) 2007 Williams, P. ; Lansdorp, B. ; Ockels, W. Files PDF Williams_2007.pdf 670.76 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:e1c9e380-5170-45dc-a10c-664e1b388576/datastream/OBJ/view