Advanced WEC Dynamics and Controls, Test 1

Abstract

Numerous studies have shown that advanced control of a wave energy converter's (WEC's) power take off (PTO) can provide significant increases (on the order of 200-300%) in WEC energy absorption. Transitioning these control approaches from simplified paper studies to application in full-scale devices remains an open and extremely challenging problem will be central to creating economically competitive WECs and delivering clean renewable energy to the US electrical grid. The Advanced WEC Dynamics and Controls project is targeted on assisting WEC developers to apply novel control systems for their devices and thus achieving major increases in performance and economic viability. The success of any control strategy is based directly upon the availability of a reduced-order model with the ability to accurately capture the dynamics of the system with sufficient accuracy. A model-scale WEC was designed and fabricated for use in studies to advance the state-of-the-art in WEC controls. This test, which is the first in a series of planned tests, focused on system identification (system ID) and model validation.