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The Project

UPWIND is a research project at the University of Porto that focuses on the development of airborne wind energy technology. Our goal is to produce renewable energy using airborne devices, tethered to the ground via a cable. We aim to make this technology more efficient, cost-effective and accessible to the world.

The idea of generating power with tethered wings flying at high speed in a cross wind direction has been first proposed by Miles Loyd in 1980. Since then, a great variety of proposals has been reported. There are still several open research questions, involving challenging optimization and control issues.

Our Path

timeline of the project

The topics of research

This project aims to contribute to some of the following topics:

  • Automatic Take-off and Landing

    • To explore Circular Take-off and Landing (CTOL).

    • To develop a new bridle system inside the kite.​
       

  • Identification, Modelling and Estimation of AWES

    • To provide a detailed modelling and identification of a kite generator system.

    • To develop efficient state estimation, namely moving horizon estimation.
       

  • Optimization and Control of AWES

    • To implement advanced control techniques, such as MPC, which are important to guarantee that stability of the overall system is particularly challenging in nonholonomic systems such as the kite.

    • To apply recently developed adaptive mesh refinement techniques to solve the optimal control problem that will further accelerate the optimizers run time.

    • To employ optimal control techniques to ensure that the kite follows a pre-defined path and also to define such paths in a way that maximizes power output.
       

  • Multiple Kite Systems

    • To guarantee robustness of the overall system, namely collision avoidance.

    • To find the best layout for a set of kites in a given area.

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Thanks for submitting!

SYSTEC, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto

Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n. 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

+351 22 508 1450

© 2024 by UPWIND Project​

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