A Computationally Tractable Path-Planning Method for Airborne Wind Energy Systems
For developers of airborne wind energy systems, this method provides a practical way to design power-maximizing flight paths without the computational burden of optimal control.
The paper proposes a computationally tractable path-planning method for airborne wind energy systems that optimizes Lissajous curve parameters to maximize average power production during the reel-out phase, offering an efficient alternative to optimal control and learning-based methods.
Airborne Wind Energy Systems (AWES) have emerged as a promising renewable energy technology that exploits stronger, more consistent high-altitude winds via tethered airborne devices. Among the various concepts, crosswind systems, where efficient flight control is essential to maximise energy output, offer significant potential. This paper addresses the problem of reference selection for crosswind flight control, focusing on the design of power-maximising geometric flight paths for the reel-out phase of Groundgen systems. To overcome the computational challenges associated with optimal control approaches, a computationally tractable framework is proposed in which a path-planning problem is formulated as a nonlinear program. The method optimises the parameters of a Lissajous curve to maximise the average power production over the reel-out phase, while incorporating curvature constraints. The proposed approach provides an efficient alternative to existing optimal control and learning-based methods.