Control of Wave Energy Converters Using A Simple Dynamic Model

© 2018 IEEE. This paper derives a control law within the context of optimal control theory for a heaving wave energy converter (WEC) and presents its implementation procedure. The proposed control assumes the availability of measurements of pressure distribution on the buoy surface, buoy position, and buoy velocity. This control has two main characteristics. First, this control is derived based on a simple dynamic model. The forces on the WEC are modeled as one total force, and hence there is no need to compute excitation or radiation forces. Second, this control can be applied to both linear and nonlinear WEC systems. The derived control law is optimal, yet its implementation requires estimation of some force derivatives, which render the obtained control force suboptimal. Numerical testing demonstrates in this paper that the proposed simple model control can achieve levels of harvested energy close to the maximum theoretical limit predicted by singular arc control in the case of linear WEC systems