Fatigue load modeling and control for wind turbines based on hysteresis operators

The focus of this work is on fatigue load modeling and controller design for the wind turbine level. The main purpose is to include a model of the damage effects caused by the fatigue of the wind turbine components in the controller design process. This paper addresses an online fatigue estimation method based on hysteresis operators, which can be used in control loops. Furthermore, we propose a model predictive control (MPC) strategy that incorporates the online fatigue estimation through the objective function, where the ultimate goal in mind is to reduce the fatigue load of the wind turbine, while tracking a desired power reference. The outcome is an adaptive or self-tuning MPC scheme for wind turbine fatigue load reduction. The results of the proposed strategy are then compared against a baseline MPC.