Validation of an integral sliding mode control for optimal control of a three blade variable speed variable pitch wind turbine

• We design nonlinear torque control for variable speed wind turbine.
• Extraction of maximum power at below rated wind speed using torque control.
• Power regulation at above rated wind speed using conventional pitch control.
• Effectiveness of the proposed controller validated on CART3 FAST wind turbine.

Reduction in cost of wind energy requires most efficient control technology which can able to extract optimum power from the wind. This paper mainly focuses on the control of variable speed variable pitch wind turbine (VSVPWT) for maximization of extracted power at below rated wind speed (region 2) and regulation of extracted power when operating at above rated wind speed (region 3). To extract maximum power at below rated wind speed torque control is used whereas to regulate rated power at above rated wind speed pitch control is used. In this paper a nonlinear control i.e. integral sliding mode control (ISMC) is proposed for region 2 whereas a conventional proportional–integral (PI) control is adapted for region 3 of a VSVPWT. The proposed controller is combined with modified Newton Raphson (MNR) wind speed estimator to estimate the wind speed. The stability of the proposed ISMC is analyzed using Lyapunov stability criterion and the control law is derived for region 2 which is also adapted for the transition period between region 2 and region 3 (region 2.5). The dynamic simulations are tested with nonlinear FAST (Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence) wind turbine (WT). The simulation results of ISMC are presented and the control performance is compared with conventional SMC and existing controllers such as aerodynamic torque feed forward control (ATF) and Indirect speed control (ISC). It is seen that especially in region 2.5, ISMC gives better performance compared to all other controllers.