Improved control of individual blade pitch for wind turbines

• Improved control of individual blade pitch for wind turbines.
• The controller is based on the proportional-integral-plus (PIP) algorithm.
• The proposed approach is demonstrated to be more robust to system disturbances than an equivalent PID design.

This paper is concerned with improved control of individual blade pitch for wind turbines. The controller is based on the proportional-integral-plus (PIP) algorithm, considered an extension of conventional proportional-integral/proportional-integral-derivative (PI/PID) controllers, in which full state variable feedback control is implemented directly from the measured input and output signals. In particular, the design and implementation of a PIP algorithm based on either standard or advanced individual blade pitch control is presented in the paper. The preliminary results reported in this article, based upon simulations using a linear transfer function representation of the pitch control system, have demonstrated that the proposed approach is robust to stochastic influences arising from both parametric uncertainty and system disturbance. The work presented in this paper constitutes a step towards the development of an advanced individual blade pitch controller.