Tracking control with adaption of kites
This work addresses the control of tethered kites for energy generation or other applications, but the results are incremental as they are only validated in simulation with a simplified model.
The paper presents a novel tracking paradigm for kites using turning angle as a one-dimensional representation, enabling a SISO tracking problem, and develops a Lyapunov-based adaptive controller validated in simulations.
A novel tracking paradigm for flying geometric trajectories using tethered kites is presented. It is shown how the differential-geometric notion of turning angle can be used as a one-dimensional representation of the kite trajectory, and how this leads to a single-input single-output (SISO) tracking problem. Based on this principle a Lyapunov-based nonlinear adaptive controller is developed that only needs control derivatives of the kite aerodynamic model. The resulting controller is validated using simulations with a point-mass kite model.