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    Computationally-efficient nonlinear model predictive control of wave energy converters with imperfect wave excitation previews


    Zhan, Siyuan, Chen, Yutao and Ringwood, John (2025) Computationally-efficient nonlinear model predictive control of wave energy converters with imperfect wave excitation previews. Ocean Engineering, 319: 120125. pp. 1-12. ISSN 0029-8018

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    Abstract

    Energy maximising (EM) control of wave energy converters (WECs) is a noncausal problem, where wave prediction information can be used to increase the energy conversion rate significantly. However, current approaches do not consider the prediction error evolution in the control formulation process, leading to potential unpredictable performance degradation. Moreover, most existing real-time WEC control approaches assume linear dynamics, motivated by their simplicity and mild computational cost and, thus, are not effective for real-time control for WECs with nonlinear dynamics. Targeting imperfect wave prediction and nonlinear WEC dynamics, this paper proposes a computationally-efficient nonlinear MPC (NMPC) scheme for WECs with (typically) imperfect wave excitation preview. This is achieved by introducing an input move blocking scheme when formulating and solving the online optimisation problem, i.e., defining finer discretisation grids for the control input and wave prediction at the early stages of the prediction horizon, where the wave prediction is more accurate, and coarser grids at the latter stages of the horizon, to reflect less inaccurate wave prediction information. Numerical simulation results are presented, based on a conceptual nonlinear point-absorber WEC, to verify the efficacy of the proposed NMPC method, in terms of produced energy, computational complexity, and robustness against wave prediction inaccuracy.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Nonlinear model predictive control; Wave prediction; Wave energy converter; Reduced computational complexity;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering > Electronic Engineering
    Item ID: 19544
    Identification Number: 10.1016/j.oceaneng.2024.120125
    Depositing User: Professor John Ringwood
    Date Deposited: 04 Mar 2025 12:55
    Journal or Publication Title: Ocean Engineering
    Publisher: Elsevier
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/19544
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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