An experimental test set-up for launch/recovery of an Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) system

This paper describes an experimental set-up for AWE systems. A novel approach of launching a rigid wing tethered airplane, using a rotational start-up, is presented. A test set-up performing this rotational start-up has been designed and built at KU Leuven. A scale analysis of this novel approach is conducted and provisions are made to accommodate future modifications to the experimental set-up. A sensor suite consisting of a stereo vision system and an inertial measurement unit are used for sensor fusion with an extended kalman filter (EKF). This EKF estimates the position, velocity and orientation of the airplane. Numerical and experimental validation of the EKF are presented in this paper as well.