Design of a Wind Turbine Pitch Controller for Loads

and Fatigue Reduction

Mate Jelavi1, Nedjeljko Peri1, Ivan Petrovi1, Stjepan Car2, Miroslav Maeri3
1

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, Croatia

2
Konar Electrical Engineering Institute, Zagreb, Croatia
3
Konar Power Plant and Electric Traction Engineering, Zagreb, Croatia

Contact: mate.jelavic@fer.hr

1.

Phone: +385 1 6129 713

Summary

Wind turbines are constantly growing in size and

power output level. This growth results in significant
increase of structural loads and fatigue that have
become limiting factors in wind turbine design. It
introduces a need to control and limit structural loads
and fatigue during wind turbine operation. This can
be done by careful control system design. In this
paper we focus on variable speed pitch controlled
wind turbine that is today an industrial standard. A
design procedure for three types of pitch controller is
described and their performance is tested by
simulations. Like first classic PID controller is
described that aims only at achieving satisfactory
rotor speed control. This classic pitch controller is
then augmented and reduction of tower oscillations is
used as additional demand during controller design.
Two controller concepts used for this purpose are
compared SISO and full state feedback controller.
Both controllers are designed by pole placement
method that assures closed loop system to behave in
desired manner. Desired closed loop system behavior
is carefully chosen in such a way that controlled
system behaves as if its structural damping has
increased. It results in reduced tower motion what
leads to loads and fatigue reduction. All controllers
described in this paper are linear so an adaptation
algorithm is needed to account for nonlinear nature of
wind turbine. For this purpose we propose the use of
Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model that calculates process
model output as a combination of "local" linear
models identified in chosen operating points.

2.

Introduction

Over last few decades wind turbines have been

constantly growing in size and power output level.
This growth has resulted in significant increase of
structural loads and fatigue that have become limiting
factors in wind turbine design. It introduces a need to
control and limit structural loads and fatigue during
wind turbine operation what can be done by means of
sophisticated control system. The main task of wind
turbine control system is to obtain continuous power
production under all operating conditions determined

Fax: +385 1 6129 809

by various wind speeds. As turbine's power is directly

proportional to its speed, power control can be done
by controlling turbine's speed. In the classic control
systems this was the only task that turbine controller
was designed to achieve. Wind turbine's
characteristics are nonlinearly dependant on wind
speed [1] what results in two very different operation
regions each of them placing specific demands upon
wind turbine control system. During weak winds
power contained in the wind is lower than the rated
power output of wind turbine generator. Therefore,
the main task of the control system in this region is to
maximize wind turbine power output by maximizing
wind energy capture. This can be done by controlling
rotor speed to values that guarantee maximal wind
energy capture for each wind speed. Since modern
wind turbines are connected to grid using AC-DC-AC
frequency converters, generator frequency is
decoupled from grid frequency what enables variable
speed operation. On the other hand, during strong
winds power of the wind is greater than the rated
power output of wind turbine generator. Therefore,
the wind energy conversion has to be constrained in
this region to assure generator operation without
overloading. Very efficient method for constraining
wind energy conversion, which has become an
industrial standard is pitching the rotor blades around
their longitudinal axis what deteriorates their
aerodynamic efficiency and therefore only a part of
wind energy is used for driving the generator.
The borderline between two operation regions is
the lowest wind speed at which turbine generator
reaches its rated power output. This wind speed is
termed rated wind speed [1]. Hence the wind turbine
operation regions are known as below and above rated
regions.
In modern wind turbines rotor speed control
remains the priority but reduction of structural loads
and fatigue appears as additional demand for the
controller. So previously described classic control
system has to be augmented to fulfill these additional
demands.
In this paper we address the problem of tower
oscillations that is becoming more and more
pronounced as wind turbine towers grow in height.
Firstly we describe the classic approach for controller
design in above rated operation region and analyze
influence of its actions on tower oscillations. Then
two methods for reducing tower oscillations are
described and analyzed by simulations. All described

controllers are linear so a method for adapting their

parameters to accommodate for the system's
nonlinearity is proposed at the end.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 3 gives
a general description of the wind turbine control
system. Section 4 introduces mathematical model of
the wind turbine that is used for controller design.
Section 5 describes the design of PID controller which
is nowadays still a standard solution for wind turbine
control. In section 6 and 7 two alternative control
concepts are proposed and their performances are
compared with the performance of PID controller. In
section 8 a method for adapting controller's
parameters based on Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model is
proposed. Conclusions are given in section 9.
3.

Wind turbine control system

The principle scheme of wind turbine speed control

system is shown in fig. 1. As it can be seen in this
figure turbine speed can be influenced and thus
controlled by two means by generator
electromagnetic torque Mg which opposes rotor
driving torque Mr and by pitch angle which alters
the wind energy conversion.

control loop design is rather simple and is not in the

scope of the paper. For simulation analysis it is
modeled as second order system:

GSD ( s ) =

n2
( s)
.
= 2
ref ( s ) s + 2 n s + n2

(1)

In this paper we use n = 6.28 rad/s and = 2 / 2

what is fairly good approximation of real pitch
positioning system.
4.

Wind turbine model

The first step in control system design is

construction of a suitable process model for wind
turbine in scope. Wind energy conversion process is
highly nonlinear and difficult for mathematical
description. It can be described quite well using
combined blade element and momentum theory [1].
However this approach yields implicit mathematical
expressions that can only be solved iteratively. This
form, although very common in simulation tools, is
not suitable for controller design. So in this paper we
use another somewhat simplified mathematical
model that is usual in the literature dealing with
controller design. Here we describe it briefly, while
details on it can be found in [3] and [4].
Wind power or the power of air that moves at
speed vw over the area swept by turbine rotor with
radius R is given by [1]:

Pw =
Fig. 1: Principle scheme of wind turbine control
system
For this reason turbine speed control system
consists of two control loops: torque control loop and
pitch control loop. Those control loops operate
simultaneously but depending on operation region one
of them is dominant. In the below rated operation
region the torque control loop is used to control
turbine speed to values that will result in maximal
wind power capture. This control loop is not in the
scope of this paper. Details on its specifics can be
found in e.g. [2]. In the above rated region this control
loop just holds generator torque at its rated value.
The pitch control loop is used for setting the
adequate pitch angle that will keep turbine speed at its
reference value under all operating conditions
determined by various winds. Below rated wind speed
this loop sets pitch angle to value that assures
maximal wind power capture which is usually around
0o. In this paper we assume that all blades have the
same pitch angle what is known as "collective pitch".
Controller in this loop, although used to control
turbine speed, is commonly termed pitch controller.
Blade positioning is mostly done using electrical
servo drives that rotate blades by means of gearboxes
and slewing rings. Position control of servo drives is
usually achieved using frequency converters. This

where

air

1
air R 2 vw3 ,
2

(2)

is density of air.

Power contained in wind given by expression (2)

can never be completely transformed into wind
turbine power and afterwards into electrical power.
The amount of wind power that is converted into
turbine power Pr can be described by means of
performance coefficient CP [1]:

Pr = Pw CP .

(3)

The theoretical maximum for CP is determined by

the Betz' law [1] and equals 16/27. In practice wind
turbines don't reach this limit but approach the value
of 0.5 at best.
CP is not a constant parameter but its value is
dependant on wind speed vw , rotor speed and

blade pitch angle . Wind speed and rotor speed are

usually bound together introducing parameter that
is called tip speed ratio which represents the ratio
between blade tip speed and wind speed [1]:

R
vw

(4)

Typical dependence of performance coefficient

upon tip speed ratio with pitch angle used as a
parameter is shown in fig. 2.

Fig. 2: Performance coefficient as a function of tip

speed ratio
Aerodynamic torque Mr that drives wind turbine
rotor and thus generator is given by:

Mr =

Pr

2
3
1 air R vwCP ( , ) .
2

(5)

Rearrangement of expression (5) yields:

Mr =

3
2
1 air R vwCP ( , ) .
2

(6)

A quotient of performance coefficient and tip speed

ratio forms a new dimensionless parameter that is
known as torque coefficient CQ [1]:

CQ ( , ) =

CP ( , ) .

(7)

Having aerodynamic torque calculated according to

(6) rotor speed can easily be found using principle
equation of motion:

J t = M r M g M l ,

(8)

where Mg is generator electromagnetic torque, Jt is

total moment of inertia of rotor and generator while
Ml is loss torque. Loss torque Ml, caused mostly by
friction is rather small and will be neglected here.
In this paper we consider wind turbine with
generator that is directly coupled with turbine rotor.
This turbine setting known as direct drive system uses
synchronous multipole generator that rotates at small
speed of turbine rotor. Since rotor and generator
speeds are the same no distinction between them is
made throughout the paper. Because there is no

gearbox between rotor and generator their moments of

inertia can just be summed together in order to
calculate total moment of inertia Jt. The coupling of
rotor to the generator in direct drive solutions is very
stiff and it can be considered as rigid thus removing
any torsional oscillations what simplifies the control
system design.
Before going further an important issue has to be
addressed. Namely, expressions (4), (5) and (6) in this
form would be valid only for structure with rigid
tower and blades. In real situation the absolute wind
speed vw in mentioned expressions has to be replaced
by wind speed that is "seen" by rotor blades. This
wind speed seen by the rotor is the resultant of three
factors: absolute wind speed vw , speed of the tower
movement perpendicular to wind speed (i.e. tower
nodding speed) xt and speed of blade movement
perpendicular to wind speed (i.e. speed of blade
flapwise movement). Influence of tower nodding on
wind turbine control is much more pronounced than
influence of blade flapwise movement. Therefore in
this paper we focus only on tower nodding
considering rotor blades as rigid.
Tower nodding originates from the fact that wind
turbine tower is very lightly damped structure due to
its great height (more than 100 meters in modern
wind turbines) and need for moderate mass. To
model the wind turbine tower precisely we would
have to use model with distributed parameters and to
describe it in terms of mass and stiffness distribution.
Such a model wouldn't be very suitable for controller
design so it has to be substituted by model with
concentrated parameters. This can be done using
modal analysis that is very common tool in wind
turbine analysis [1], [3]. It describes a complex
oscillatory structure as a composition of several
simple oscillatory systems each of them being
described by means of mass, stiffness and damping.
By this representation complex tower oscillations are
seen as a sum of many simple oscillations
characterized by their modal frequencies which are
one of the most important structural properties of
wind turbine. It has been shown in practice [5] that
fairly good modeling of wind turbine tower nodding
can be achieved using two modal frequencies (two
modes). Since we are here primarily interested in
building model suitable for controller design we use
only the first modal frequency. The justification for
this lies in the fact that for the turbine in scope
second modal frequency is more than 6 times greater
than the first modal frequency and therefore falls out
of the controller frequency bandwidth.
By using only one modal frequency tower dynamics
can be described as:

Mxt + Dxt + Cxt = F ,

(9)

where M, D, and C are modal mass damping and

stiffness respectively and F is the generalized force
that is originated by wind and that causes wind
turbine tower oscillations. Tower modal properties in
expression (9) are related to first tower modal
frequency

0t as follows [4]:

D = 2 t0t M ,

(10)

C = ( 0 t ) M ,
2

where t is structural damping. For steel structure

structural damping is mostly set to 0.005 [4]. Modal
mass M can be calculated as [1]:
ht

M = m ( h ) ( h ) dh ,
2

(11)

where ht is the height of the tower, m(h) is the mass

distribution along the tower and ( h ) is the tower's
first mode shape. Note that actual distribution of
mass along tower has to be modified in order to
include mass of the rotor and the nacelle which is
assumed to be concentrated at the tower top.
Driving force F is mostly the rotor thrust force Ft
caused by wind. It can be shown [4] that thrust force,
similar to aerodynamic torque, depends upon wind
speed, rotor speed and pitch angle. So similarly to (6)
it can be expressed as [4]:

Ft =

1
air R 2 vw2 Ct ( , ) ,
2

(12)

scheduling has to be used [3]. Although it seems

straightforward to use wind speed as scheduling
criterion this is not an appropriate solution since the
wind speed is not measured fast and accurately
enough. Therefore measured pitch angle is usually
used as scheduling variable.
For the design of a PID controller using analytical
methods process model (13) has to be linearised
around chosen operating point. After linearization of
expressions (13) and transition to Laplace domain
simple algebraic manipulations yield transfer
functions that are needed for controller design. Those
transfer functions are:

G ( s ) =

( s )
( s )

(14)

Gw ( s ) =

( s ) .
vw ( s )

(15)

and

These transfer functions are of the third order. A

good insight in system properties of the wind turbine
can be gained if we examine frequency
characteristics of transfer function (14) shown in fig.
3.

where Ct is so called thrust coefficient.

Expressions (6), (8), (9) and (12) form the simplified
nonlinear model of wind turbine that is used in the
following sections for controller design. Model is
summarized below taking into account the fact that
wind speed seen by the rotor is a sum of wind speed
and tower nodding speed:

J t = M r M g M l ,
1
2
air R 3 CQ ( , ) ( vw xt ) ,
.
2
1
2
Ft = air R 2 Ct ( , ) ( vw xt ) ,
2
Ft = Mxt + Dxt + Cxt .

Mr =

(13)

Torque and thrust coefficients Cq and Ct are usually

provided by wind turbine blade manufacturers or can
be calculated using professional simulation tools.
5.

PID Controller

The PID controllers are still by far the most used

controllers for wind turbine speed and power control.
This is due to their simplicity and rather high
robustness. The small number of parameters makes
possible for designer to quickly arrive at satisfactory,
although in many cases suboptimal, system behavior.
As stated before wind turbine dynamics change in
nonlinear fashion with change in wind speed. To
control the wind turbine with linear controllers gain

Fig. 3: Frequency characteristics of G

It can be observed that frequency characteristics of
transfer function (14) at tower modal frequency
exhibits magnitude and phase drop. Similar
phenomena are present in frequency characteristics of
(15) as well. This fact makes the pitch controller
design very difficult. Physical explanation for
observed effects becomes clear from the following
analysis. Change in wind speed causes change in
rotor speed what requires controller action and
pitching of the blades in order to regulate the rotor
speed to its rated value. Pitching the rotor blades,
besides the aerodynamic torque, alters the thrust
force significantly. Thrust force, according to (13),
causes change in wind turbine tower top speed and
thus the wind speed seen by the rotor is changed.
This alters the aerodynamic conversion and in this
way a feedback is formed. For this reason wind
turbine can easily be driven into oscillatory behavior
if the pitch controller is not designed properly.

Wind that was used for simulation observed positive

and negative stepwise change shown in fig. 4.
Responses of rotor speed, pitch angle and tower top
displacement are shown in figs. 5. 6. and 7.
respectively. From these figures it can be seen that
rotor speed is well regulated and quickly compensated
for the influences of wind speed changes. The pitch
control actions are moderate without any oscillations.
Similar results were obtained for all operating points
throughout wind turbine operating range.
18

Wind speed [m/s]

17

16
15

14

13

12
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

t [s]

Fig. 4: Wind speed used for simulation in Bladed

25

Rotor speed [rpm]

24.5

24

23.5

23

22.5

22
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

t [s]

Fig. 5: Response of rotor speed of the system

controlled with PID controller
16
15

Pitch angle [deg]

14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

t [s]

Fig. 6: Response of pitch angle of the system

controlled with PID controller
0.12
0.1

Tower top displacement [m]

To prevent the pitch controller from driving the wind

turbine into oscillatory behavior it must be assured that
system frequency bandwidth is below the first tower
modal frequency. Moreover, sufficiently small
magnitude is required at the first modal frequency. As
it can be seen from fig. 3. the first modal frequency of
the turbine in scope is 3 rad/s so a bandwidth of 1 rad/s
was chosen. PID controller was designed to assure
phase margin of around 60o what gives satisfactory
behavior of the system.
To fully explore the system behavior with chosen
controller simulation tool GH Bladed was used. GH
Bladed is professional simulation package designed for
wind turbine simulations and load calculations [5]. It
relies upon very complex mathematical model based
on combined blade element and momentum theory [1].
Structural properties of the wind turbine are modeled
in detail and inertial and gravitational loads are taken
into account along with aerodynamic ones. Extensive
testing showed that simulation results obtained in
Bladed are in accordance with measurements taken on
actual wind turbines what was recognized by major
standardization and certification institutions (e.g.
Germanischer Llyod).
To model the structural properties of explored turbine
many modes are used [5]. Tower nodding is modeled
with two modes as well as tower naying (tower sideside motion). Rotor blades' motion in flapwise
direction is modeled with 6 modal frequencies while
blades' motion in edgewise direction (displacement of
the rotor blades in the plane of rotation) is modeled
with 5 modal frequencies. Wind shear and tower
shadow are included in the model as well. PID
controller designed based on linearised model (14) and
(15) was implemented in C and included as external
discrete time controller. In that way we could use
Bladed for controller testing.
In the following figures behavior of the system when
PID controller is used for rotor speed control is shown
for one representative operating point ( vw = 15 m/s).

0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
-0.02
-0.04
-0.06
-0.08
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

t [s]

Fig. 7: Response of tower top displacement of the

system controlled with PID controller
While rotor speed and pitch angle behavior is
satisfactory, attention should be paid to the tower top
oscillations shown in fig. 7. It can be observed that
tower top experiences lightly damped oscillatory
behavior. These lasting oscillations, although small in
magnitude, contribute to material fatigue and can lead
to structure premature failure. So in the following
sections two methods for controller design that aim at
reduction of tower top oscillations are proposed.

SISO pole placement controller

In this section the pitch controller with SISO

structure is designed using well known pole placement
method [6]. As design objective in this method the
desired behavior of the closed loop system has to be
chosen. The pitch controller GPC is then designed to
assure that closed loop system behaves in the chosen
manner. Transfer functions (14) and (15) form the
linearised wind turbine model that can be described
with the principle scheme shown in fig. 8.

Fig 8: Principle scheme of the linearised wind turbine

model
From the principle scheme given in fig. 8 closed loop
transfer function with respect to wind speed change
can be derived:

GCL _ w =

Gw (s)
(s)
.
=
vw (s) CL 1+ GPC (s)GSD ( s ) G (s)

GCL _ w ( s ) = Gm ( s ) .

25

(16)

24.5

The pitch controller GPC has to assure that closed loop

transfer function (16) is equal to the chosen model
transfer function Gm:
!

As previously said our primary goal is the reduction of

tower oscillations. Tower oscillations can be reduced if
the tower modal damping increases what would
require change in tower structural parameters such as
mass and stiffness distributions. Our goal is to achieve
similar increase of tower damping by means of pitch
controller actions without change in tower structural
parameters. In that sense as a controller design
objective we set a desired increase of tower modal
damping. In other words tower modal damping D in
the last expression in (13) is replaced with desired
modal damping D' thus forming system model with
new set of parameters. This model is linearised and
transfer functions (14) and (15) are calculated. Using
calculated transfer functions PID controller is designed
following the guidelines described in section 5. Having
the controller designed it is possible to calculate closed
loop transfer function (16). This closed loop transfer
function, obtained using system with increased
damping and PID controller is then regarded as desired
model transfer functions Gm for the real system. In
other words our goal is to design a controller that
assures that real system behaves as its tower damping
has increased. The system response with SISO pole
placement controller was simulated in Bladed using
previously described full featured model. Wind used
for simulation was the same as in section 4. Simulation
results are given in the figs. 9-11. From these figures it
can be seen that pole placement controller achieves
almost the same regulation of rotor speed as PID
controller does.

(17)

Rotor speed [rpm]

6.

24
23.5

23
22.5

22
0

From (16) and (17) it follows that pitch controller has

a form of :

G (s) Gm(s) .
1
w
GSD ( s) G (s)
Gm(s)

20

30

40

50

60

70

t [s]

Fig. 9: Response of rotor speed of the system

controlled with SISO pole placement controller

(18)

It should be noted that the above expression often

needs to be modified to assure that the controller is
causal. Details on this design method can be found in
[6].
The crucial step in controller design using described
method is the choice of model transfer function Gm. It
is important to choose model transfer that is achievable
for the system in scope and that assures its satisfactory
behavior. One possibility that is very common in the
literature is the use of standard forms such as
Butterworth or binomial form. However, these forms
can be rather difficult to relate to system physical
properties. So another approach is used in this paper.

16
15
14

Pitch angle [deg]

GPC (s) =

10

13
12
11
10
9
8
7
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

t [s]

Fig. 10: Response of pitch angle of the system

controlled with SISO pole placement controller

70

7.

0.12

Tower top displacement [m]

0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
-0.02
-0.04
-0.06
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

t [s]

Fig. 11: Response of tower top displacement of the

system controlled with SISO pole placement
controller
This was to be expected since the PID controller is the
"core" of the pole placement controller design. At the
same time tower oscillations are more damped. Since
the tower structure remains the same this damping is
achieved by higher pitch control activity than in the
case of PID controller.
The question that naturally appears is the limit to
which extend the tower oscillations can be damped in
this way. Answer to this question can be obtained
analyzing fig. 12. This figure shows comparison of
Bode plots of controllers designed with different
values of desired tower damping D'.

Full state feedback controller

The SISO pole placement controller described in

section 6 has shown some promising results but its
ability to damp the tower oscillations is limited. Key
cause for this is the fact that it doesn't use information
about actual tower oscillations but only rotor speed
feedback. Damping of tower oscillations by addition of
tower top speed feedback to PID controller is proposed
in [1]. Tower top speed measurement can be obtained
from tower top acceleration measured by
accelerometers that are nowadays almost a standard
part of wind turbine control system. In our approach
we use slightly different methodology. Instead of
extended PID controller we use full state feedback
controller designed using pole placement method.
Desired closed loop behavior is chosen in the same
way as for described pole placement controller. For
this purpose process model (13) has to be rewritten in
the state space form:

x = A x + B u,

State variables used for system description and control

are rotor speed , rotor acceleration , tower top
speed

xt

and tower top acceleration

system inputs are wind speed

generator torque Mg:

x = ,
xt

xt

Fig. 12: Bode plots of SISO pole placement controllers

designed to achieve different values of tower damping
D'
From fig. 12 it becomes clear that increased tower
damping results in high pass controller behavior. This
has a consequence of increased pitch activity which in
turn results in additional oscillations and finally
cancels out the advantages of proposed design
methodology. So a tradeoff between desired increase
in tower damping and pitch activity has to be made.

(19)

y = C x + D u.

xt ,

while

vw , pitch angle and

vw

.
u=
M g

(20)

Rotor speed and tower acceleration are measured

variables while other two states are derived from them.
Using Ackermann's formula [6] vector of feedback
gains for selected states can be calculated. System with
such a controller was tested in Bladed using the same
wind stepwise change as in sections 5 and 6. Simulation
results are shown in the figs. 13-15. From these figures
it can be seen that full state feedback controller
maintains good rotor speed regulation while at the same
time achieving better damping of the tower oscillations
and practically removing the oscillatory movement of
the tower. The pitch activity in this case increases
considerably so a tradeoff between tower oscillations'
damping and pitch activity is necessary. To examine the
behavior of three described controllers in more realistic
conditions the system behavior in 3D turbulent wind
field was simulated in Bladed. Further information
about simulations of 3D turbulent wind fields can be
found in e.g. [7]. Let's just mention here that turbulent
wind field was generated in Bladed using Kaimal
spectrum recommended by the international standards
for wind turbine design [8].

information about actual tower oscillations. On the other

hand full state feedback controller maintains shown
ability to reduce tower oscillations even under turbulent
winds. The cost of that is increased pitch activity what
must be taken into account to avoid pitch system
excessive wear. This can be very efficiently done using
LQR algorithm but that exceeds the scope of this paper.

25

Rotor speed [rpm]

24.5

24
23.5

8.

23

22.5

22
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

t [s]

Fig. 13: Response of rotor speed of the system

controlled with full state feedback controller
16
15

Pitch angle [deg]

14
13
12
11
10

Takagi-Sugeno process model

Controllers presented in sections 5-7 are linear. At

the other hand wind turbine is highly nonlinear system
as it was shown in section 4. To get the feeling of this
high nonlinearity we simulated system response upon
stepwise change of wind speed and pitch angle in
various operating points from above rated operation
region. The controller was only used to bring the
system into steady state and then it was disabled. In
this way it was possible to perform open loop tests ant
to change wind speed and pitch angle independently
one from another. Figure 16 shows open loop
response upon 1m/s stepwise wind speed change in
three representative operating points - 11 m/s (rated
wind speed), 15 m/s and 25 m/s (cut out wind speed).
It can be observed that turbine rotor speed response to
the same wind speed step change is almost 10 times
faster at cut-out wind speed than it is at the rated wind
speed while the magnitude of turbine rotor speed
change is around 7 times smaller.

9
vw = 11 m/s

8
10

20

30

40

50

60

70

t [s]

Fig. 14: Response of pitch angle of the system

controlled with full state feedback controller
0.12

Tower top displacement [m]

0.1

Turbine rotor speed [rpm]

7
0

32

vw = 15 m/s
vw = 30 m/s

30

28

26

24
0

50

100

150

200

250

t [s]

0.08

Fig. 16. Response of turbine rotor speed to wind

speed step change

0.06
0.04
0.02
0
-0.02
-0.04
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

t [s]

Fig. 15: Response of tower top displacement of the

system controlled with full state feedback controller
To gain valid information about system behavior in
3D turbulent conditions it is necessary for the
simulations to last for at least 10 minutes what generates
lots of data. Therefore, simulation results are not
presented here due to limited space. Simulations in 3D
turbulent wind field have shown that SISO pole
placement controller in turbulent conditions achieves
only modest improvement of tower oscillations when
compared to the PID controller. The reason for this is
the mentioned fact that SISO controller doesn't use

Equivalent open loop experiments done for pitch angle

showed that system dynamics change more than 10
times through above rated operation region. The
observed situation shows that it would be impossible to
control the system with a linear controller with fixed
parameters in the entire operation region.
However the use of linear controllers is very
appealing for their simplicity and comprehensive
design theory. Also, as it was shown in sections 5-7,
linear controllers' performance can be very
satisfactory around particular operating point for
which they were designed. So the classic solution to
tackle the wind turbine nonlinearity is the use of linear
controllers with parameter scheduling [3]. In this
classic approach, which is widely used in practice,
operating region is divided into many operating points
and at each operating point a linear controller is
designed. During wind turbine operation as operating
point changes controller chooses from predesigned set
of parameters based upon certain scheduling variable.
The scheduling variable is mostly measured pitch

angle since the wind speed is not measured fast and

reliably enough.
The problem with described classic approach is the
fact that the controller is designed based upon process
model that is completely valid only in several
operating points characterized by wind speed, pitch
angle and rotor speed. In this way controller
parameters are often not optimal for actual operating
point and system behavior can be different from the
one demanded during controller design.
To assure that demanded process behavior is
obtained under all possible operating conditions online controller synthesis based on the on-line
identified process model should be used. This
approach, however, brings along many drawbacks that
are related with necessity of persistent excitation and
identification algorithm convergence [9]. Besides this
wind speed, which is at the same time the main
driving force of the system and the main source of
disturbance, is not measured fast and reliably enough
to be used for the process model identification.
So another approach is proposed in this paper that
tries to overcome the drawbacks of two
aforementioned methods. The idea is to perform the
on-line controller synthesis to assure better adaptation
to actual operating point, but the process model is not
identified on-line using system identification methods.
Instead a Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model is used. TakagiSugeno fuzzy model that is described in [10] can be
described with number of fuzzy rules Ri that have a
form of:

Ri : IF x1 (k ) is F1i x2 (k ) is F2i xnx (k ) is Fnxi

THEN yi (k +1) = p0i + p1im1(k) +

i
+ pnm
mnm(k), i = 0,1, ,nr, (21)

where nr is number of fuzzy rules, x1xny are

fuzzy variables from the conditional part of the rule
with corresponding fuzzy sets F1i Fnxi . As it can be
seen from expression (21) the right side of the fuzzy
rule doesn't contain fuzzy sets but the linear
regression with p0pnm being linear model parameters
and m1mnm being previous values of process model
inputs and outputs (elements of regression vector).
This is due to the fact that Takagi-Sugeno model uses
singleton fuzzy sets in the output part of fuzzy rule
which are in fact sharp numerical values. The output
of the Takagi-Sugeno process model is calculated as:
nr

( x(k ) ) y (k + 1)
i

y (k + 1) =

i =1

(22)

nr

( x( k ) )
i

i =1

where i is the membership function that describes

fuzzy set Fi. Expressions (21) and (22) show that the
Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model in fact produces a linear
model output that is calculated as combination of
many "local" linear models. This characteristic
makes Takagi-Sugeno model very appealing for use
in wind turbine modeling and control. The local
linear models needed on the right side of fuzzy rules
(21) are wind turbine linear models obtained by

linearization of wind turbine model (13) that were

already used for design of previously described
controllers. Having those models calculated the
crucial step that remains is the choice of conditional
variables x1xnx and building a base of fuzzy rules
that will describe the actual process dynamics. To
demonstrate
the
possibilities
of
proposed
methodology in this paper we use very simple
approach where only pitch angle is used as
conditional variable. Process model (13) is linearized
in 18 operating points from above rated operation
region that are determined by wind speed and
corresponding pitch angle. So a Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy
model is described with 18 fuzzy rules that have a
form of:

IF is "Around i" THEN

yi ( k +1) = Gwi ( z ) vw ( k ) + Gi ( z ) ( k )

(23)

where Gwi ( z ) and Gi ( z ) are discrete time

transfer functions obtained by discretisation of (14)
and (15) and i is the pitch angle that determines the
operating point around which process model was
linearised to obtain i-th linear process model. To
describe "Around i" fuzzy sets a triangular
membership function were used. The question that
naturally appears is the choice of membership
functions' parameters that is critical for the process
description. The manual tuning of the membership
functions' parameters would be very demanding and it
would have to be done more-less based on trial and
error procedure since the process dynamics away
from the operating points is not known. To overcome
this problem we used a training algorithm that tuned
the membership functions' parameters based on
measured error between nonlinear process model
output and Takagi-Sugeno approximation. Nonlinear
process model and Takagi-Sugeno models were
excited with the same input signals and the output
error was calculated. Then the membership functions'
parameters were changed in the way that guaranteed
reduction of this error. The described procedure was
repeated for several iterations until the error fell
below certain chosen value. It should be pointed out
here that linear model that is obtained using TakagiSugeno model can only model perturbation i.e.
change of output variable (rotor speed) away from its
steady state values when excited with perturbations of
input signals (wind speed and pitch angle). This poses
a serious problem since wind speed and pitch angle
have different steady state values at different
operation points what complicates the algorithm. At
the other hand our primary goal is not to approximate
the system output with Takagi-Sugeno model but to
model its dynamics as a base for controller design.
Therefore we didn't use absolute values of inputs and
outputs but their deviations. In this way we eliminate
the steady state value and focus just on the dynamics
that is of prior interest here. The illustration of
performance of the proposed methodology is shown
in fig. 17 where a comparison of nonlinear process
model and Takagi-Sugeno model is shown. The fig.
17 shows the deviation of process model output when
wind speed ramps from rated wind speed to cut-out
wind speed and back at rate of 0.5 m/s2 what drives
the system through all 18 operating points. For
comparison fig. 17 also shows the output of the linear

model whose parameters are simply scheduled and

taken to be the parameters for the nearest operating
point determined by measured pitch angle. From this
figure it can be seen that Takagi-Sugeno model can
assure better approximation of the actual process
dynamics than linear model whose parameters are
changed based on actual operating point. This leads to
conclusion that controller designed based on TakagiSugeno model could be more capable to cope with
nonlinear process dynamics than controller that uses
classic parameter scheduling. This simple example
was intended just to illustrate the possibility of
proposed methodology. Much better performance is
expected if more process variables are used in
conditional part of fuzzy rules.
0.4
Nonlinear model
Set of linear models
Takagi-Sugeno

R otor speed deviation [rad/s 2 ]

0.3

The achieved damping of tower oscillations leads to

fatigue reduction what enables production of lighter
and less expensive wind turbines. All considered
controllers are linear so a method for adapting their
parameters to account for nonlinear nature of wind
turbine is needed. An on-line controller synthesis
based on Takagi-.Sugeno fuzzy process model is
proposed in the paper that seems promising for this
purpose.

Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by Konar
Electrical Engineering Institute and the Ministry of
Science Education and Sports of the Republic of
Croatia.

0.2

References

0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
0

10

15

20

25
t [s]

30

35

40

45

50

Fig. 17. Comparison of Takagi-Sugeno model and

linear model with parameter scheduling

9.

Conclusion

The control system for variable speed pitch

controlled wind turbine is presented. The wind
turbine system is highly nonlinear and its parameters
change significantly with change of wind speed.
Furthermore wind turbine mechanical structure is
very flexible and can easily be driven into oscillatory
behavior. All this makes the controller design a very
demanding task. In this paper three methods for wind
turbine pitch controller design are compared. It is
shown that classic PID controller can assure good
rotor speed regulation but tower oscillations are very
pronounced. To reduce these undesired oscillations
two alternative control structures are investigated:
SISO pole placement controller and full state
feedback controller. The design objective for these
controllers, besides good rotor speed regulation, was
the increase of tower damping. Both controllers have
shown that owing to increased pitch control activity
it becomes possible to damp the tower oscillations.
To test the controllers' performances in more realistic
conditions simulation under 3D turbulent wind field
were conducted in Bladed. It was observed that under
such conditions only slight reduction of tower
oscillations is achieved by SISO pole placement
controller. On the other hand full state feedback
controller has shown that is capable of reducing the
tower oscillations even under turbulent conditions.

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