Impacts of Prediction on Wave Energy Converter Control

Ocean waves provide a promising source of renewable energy for the North American electric grid. However, ideal control of wave energy converters (WECs) requires perfect forecasting of future wave conditions, and waves can be unpredictable. This paper presents a comparison of three different previewing methods and analyzes their performance in a WEC system controlled via Model Predictive Control (MPC). Results show that while all three previewing methods present a significant decrease in WEC controller performance, the choice of the controller parameters plays an important role in the magnitude of that decrease. In the best case, the previewing methods tested in this paper have a 54.49% decrease in performance compared to ideal previewing on average output power.

Major Advisor: Ted Brekken
Committee: David Bernell
Committee: Eduardo Cotilla-Sanchez
GCR: Roberto Albertani