Real-time control and hardware-in-the-loop simulation for educational purposes of wind energy systems

The education of students in the area of wind energy engineering for industrial as well as research activities is every day more and more challenging. Wind energy converters become continuously larger and more complex and therefore advanced expertise is necessary. On the other hand, large machines are not available neither for research nor for teaching. In particular, the field of control of wind turbines is principally affected because control systems have to be proved in real-time and new control engineers are not able to be familiar with such systems and then it is not possible to gain practical experience. To this end, Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) simulation and control can play an important role in this sense. In the present contribution, an architecture of a HiL system for real-time control and simulation of wind turbines is presented. The use of the system helping students in the development of their Master thesis is illustrated by some examples.