NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed hardware and software to track the flight of tethered vehicles, including kite-like, airborne wind energy (AWE) generation systems. The control system consists of a pan-tilt platform and a visible-spectrum digital camera, combined with tracking control software running on a standard PC. The system controls the flight of the vehicle to keep its position on a power-producing trajectory, maximizing velocity (but within limits). This trajectory produces tension, which turns the ground-based generator, producing the energy. The NASA system enables effective operation of groundgen or flygen types of AWE systems. NASA has a working prototype and pre-beta software, and is seeking development partners to make it more robust and user-friendly by testing it in real-world systems.
Comprised of a camera, load cells, encoders, an anemometer, and software, the tracking system is based on digital photo analysis. The system tracks where the kite is 30 times every second. The controller makes an adjustment to the tether winch to keep the kite in the controlled trajectory to maximize power at high velocities without exceeding the limits of the hardware. Langley has built and generated power with a 2-kW demonstrator with two tethers (each with its own servomotor), and a pan-tilt unit to extend the field of view of the camera. NASA has flown the system many times and has collected an abundance of flight data.
The system uses low-cost components, and provides tracking and control for both groundgen and flygen systems (allowing the designer to move the control system from the kite end to the ground). The technology can potentially scale to enable groups of hundreds of kites to fly in flock formation for scalable power. It can be utilized as either a primary or backup system, and can be used in both land-based and offshore applications.
NASA is actively seeking licensees to commercialize this technology. Please contact The Technology Gateway at
Transcript
00:00:02 wind energy is the fastest growing sector of renewable energy production however limitations of turbine tower height and intermittent wind conditions at low altitudes are major hurdles to competitive pricing with fossil fuel energy production beginning in the mid 1970s NASA led the technology development of utility scale kilowatt towered wind turbines this has evolved
00:00:27 to the megawatt scale commercial wind turbines that you see in use today NASA Langley Research Center has begun Research into a new field of renewable energy called airborn wind energy this new method of harnessing the wind's power will enable access to the faster steadier winds at higher altitudes this is a groundbased reel out Reelin generator system a small 2 KW
00:00:54 generator Airborne wind energy research platform has been built and is being used to perform basic research on flight Dynamics automated control and improved aerodynamics for this new technology this platform integrates existing off-the-shelf Technologies to enable this new method the wing is flown in a high-speed Figure 8 pattern to maximize tension on
00:01:19 the tethers during the Reel out power generation phase when the maximum tether length is reached a low tension recovery Reelin is used the difference between reel out energy and real in energy is positive Airborne wind energy is well suited for offshore application due to the simplification in deep sea floor [Music] anchoring other proposed applications
00:01:46 include military forward operating sites and disaster relief [Music] [Applause] sites NASA Langley is also developing other Airborne wind energy cont ceps for robotic exploration of Mars in this flying generator concept a buoyant vehicle tethers itself to the Mars surface Martian winds turn electric
00:02:11 turbine generators to charge on board batteries when the batteries are charged the vehicle untethers itself and uses the turbine generator in propeller motor mode for exploration in the lower atmosphere of Mars we anticipate that the development of these new technologies will enable the next generation of commercial wind power
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