ATLANTIS: Wind Energy with Integrated Servo-control (WEIS) Toolset Development Project

The Wind Energy with Integrated Servo-control (WEIS) model, a revolutionary open-source tool set, enables control co-design (CCD) optimization of both conventional and innovative, cost-effective, floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs). The WEIS is collaboratively developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and the Colorado State University (CSU). The WEIS accounts directly for plant-control design coupling, identify system-optimal solutions, and support a range of CCD formulations, including simultaneous, nested, and other proposed formulations that are mathematically equivalent. The WEIS is entirely open-source and equally accessible to researchers, large companies, and small startups.

The code can be downloaded from this GitHub repository.

ATLANTIS: A Low-Cost Floating Offshore Vertical Axis Wind System (FloatVAWT) Development Project

A Low-Cost Floating Offshore Vertical Axis Wind System (FloatVAWT) project aims to develop an economically competitive FOWT design that features a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT), exploiting inherent VAWT characteristics that are favorable to the deep-water environment while overcoming common VAWT challenges through a control co-design approach. We are developing a design approach based on a Hierarchical Control Co-design (H-CCD) framework tailored to the design of the floating VAWT system, subsystem, and components. The novel elements of this framework include aeroelastic tailoring of the rotor to reduce parked and operating loads, coordination of active on-blade flow control with rotor speed control to reduce torque variability, a lightweight and stable platform design, and a modular drive-train.