An Advanced Control Strategy for Dual-Actuator Driving System in Full-Scale Fatigue Test of Wind Turbine Blades

A new dual-actuator fatigue loading system of wind turbine blades was designed. Compared with the traditional pendulum loading mode, the masses in this system only moved linearly along the loading direction to increase the exciting force. However, the two actuators and the blade constituted a complicated non-linear energy transferring system, which led to the non-synchronization of actuators. On-site test results showed that the virtual spindle synchronous strategy commonly used in synchronous control was undesirable and caused the instability of the blade’s amplitude eventually. A cross-coupled control strategy based on the active disturbance rejection algorithm was proposed. Firstly, a control system model was built according to the synchronization error and tracking error. Furthermore, based on arranging the transition process, estimating the system state and error feedback, and compensating disturbance, an active disturbance rejection controller was designed by adopting the optimal control function. Finally, on-site test results showed that the cross-coupled control strategy based on the active disturbance rejection algorithm could ensure the synchronization of two actuators. The maximum speed synchronization error of the two motors was less than 16 RPM, the displacement synchronization error of the two actuators was less than 0.25 mm and approaching zero after 4 seconds, and the peak value of vibration of the blade was less than 5 mm, which satisfied the fatigue test requirement.