Séminaire ICE « Optimal Control of Wave Energy Converters: from adaptive PI control to model predictive control »

Abstract

Advanced control strategies play a crucial role in increasing the energy extraction capacity of Wave Energy Converters (WECs). So far, the most promising control schemes have predominantly been studied in simulation, based on the idealized assumption of the conversion efficiency of the Power-Take-Off (PTO) system. This is not the case in practical WEC implementations. The power that is withdrawn from the grid and used to accelerate the float is always more expensive than the power that is produced by the float motion and delivered to the grid via the PTO system.

In this presentation, two approaches that can take into account the PTO efficiency are presented. The first one is based on an adaptive PI control with an online estimation of the dominant wave frequency, while model predictive control is employed for the second one. The proposed control methods are validated and compared through experiments for irregular sea states. Some classical results from the literature are also recalled and compared.

Bio

Hoai Nam Nguyen got his engineer’s degree in Electrical Engineering in 2009 at the Bauman – Moscow State Technical University, Mowcow, Russia. He then obtained his Ph.D. in Automatic Control in 2012 from Supélec – École supérieure d’électricité, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. He spent two years of postdoc from 2013 to 2014 at the Technion, Israel Institut of Techlonogies, Haifa, Israel. From 2015 to 2021, he worked in industry at IFP Energies Nouvelles as a research engineer. Since September, 2021, he joins Telecom-SudParis as an associate professor.

He research interests and activities lie in the broad areas of dynamical systems, control theory and optimization with particular focus on sensor fusion, statistical signal processing, Kalman filtering, optimization based control, embedded systems, autonomous systems and their applications.