Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

Kites flying in figure eights generate far more energy than kites just riding the wind. Now kites are being tethered to turbines to generate electricity. This works well when the wind is steady, not so well when the wind speed drops or there are gusts. So a neural network has been trained to maximize the kites ability to produce energy when the wind is not steady.

Abstract. Recent development in tethered airfoil i.e. kite technology allows the possibility of exploitation of wind energy at higher altitudes than achievable with traditional wind turbines, with greater efficiency and reduced costs. This study describes the use of evolutionary robotics techniques to build neurocontrollers that maximize energy recoverable from wind by kite control systems in simulation. From initially randomized starting conditions, neurocontrollers rapidly develop under evolutionary pressure to fly the kite in figure eight trajectories that have previously been shown to be an optimal path for power generation. Advantages of this approach are discussed and data is presented which demonstrates the robustness of trajectory control to environmental perturbation. Control of tethered airfoils for a new class of wind energy generator