SEMINAR REPORT ON

AIRBORNE WIND TURBINES

By
K. SOBHAN BABU
M-TECH ENERGY SYSTEMS

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
S.NO TITLE Page No

1 ABSTRACT 2

2 INTRODUCTION 3

3 CONVENTIONAL TECHNOLOGY 5

4 SIMILARITIES 6

5 AERODYNAMIC PRINCIPLE 8

6 HIGHER ALTITUDE OPERATION 9

7 CLASSIFICATION & DESIGN 11

8 TECHNICAL CHALLENGES 15

9 CERTIFICATION AND SAFETY 16

10 POWER GENERATION 17

11 CONCLUSION 19

REFERENCE 20

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 ABSTRACT

The demand for energy keeps increasing than the actual supply
capacity available today. Wind energy is 2nd largest renewable source
contributes power throughout the world next to solar. Many countries
nowadays are switching to wind technology to reduce carbon
emission, to control pollution, and toxic gas reduction. Even though
wind is an inconsistent, intermittent energy, unreliable source of
energy, it is still a clean fuel source. So, the basic idea of obtaining
energy from wind is the same but taking it to a higher altitude and
obtaining a much higher energy is all about this papers discussion.
Extracting wind energy continuously from higher altitudes regions
through an airborne system is termed as Airborne Wind Turbines.
And this technology is discussed throughout the paper.

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 INTRODUCTION
Alternative energy sources are required as because fossil fuels
are now depleted in a larger extent like never before in a faster rate
and pollute the environment like never before. Wind energy is one of
the cleanest energy of all which is an abundant resource. After power
production it will not release any toxic gases like conventional system
power plants. One time investment is only required for wind energy
after that only maintenance, which contributes lesser in terms of
money. Because fuel is, free. Wind energy power production follows
the same principle of aerodynamics. So, a careful designing is always
required to extract the most out of wind velocity. This will make the
efficiency go up and make it the best source for power production.
The development of airborne wind energy turbines and how the parts
of airborne wind turbine—rotor, generator, blades and electronics—
operates to capture wind energy to produce power at a higher altitude
region.
If costs of other power production methods are considered,
including the true costs of nuclear fission process and external cost of
fossil fuel energy, Airborne wind turbine will be the cheapest energy
source if implemented worldwide. Large-scale electricity production
by wind turbine systems at higher altitudes has the potential to meet
the world’s total energy demand when it is on a mass economics
scale.
Greenhouse gases are now attracting everybody’s concentration
to save humankind and earth without any other choices they are
forced to search for an alternative source, which is one among them.
The market forces started realizing the higher altitude wind power
production makes them to do research work for finding an optimum

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solution. As this source of energy never emits any greenhouse gases,
this is one of the cleanest energy systems in the world. AWT
(AIRBORNE WIND TURBINES) Wind turbines that fly at high
altitudes are one option. These machines are tethered to ground
supports and transfer electricity generated at higher altitudes to the
ground using these tethers. Many researches proved that wind power
produced by wind turbines is the reliable, cost-effective, eco-friendly
and best alternative sources of green energy. If we harvest the higher
altitude wind energy, there will not be any shortage of wind power in
the world.
An airborne wind turbine is a concept of design for a wind
turbine that will float in air at a higher altitude without a tower.
Airborne wind turbines will operate in low or high altitudes
depending upon the requirement; they are the real potential of
airborne wind energy systems (AWE) addressed by high-altitude
wind power. When the generator is on the ground, then the tethered
aircraft need not carry the high weight generator. When the generator
is aloft, then a conductive tether would be used to transmit energy
produced to the ground, used aloft, or beamed to receivers using
microwave or laser. Airborne turbine systems (AWT) would have the
advantage of tapping an almost constant higher wind speed, without
requirements for slip rings or yaw mechanism, and without spending
for tower construction.

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Conventional technology
Airborne wind technology borrows its basic vision from
conventional systems. The conventional system has generator,
gearboxes, power convertors, turbine systems connected to the grid.
The conventional system extracts the wind energy through the turbine
blades and converts that mechanical energy into kinetic energy. The
total swept area determines the wind energy being extracted by the
system. The wind energy extraction by the turbine depends upon the
velocity of the wind and density. The conventional systems require
huge amount of land for the erection and production of electricity.
Such that those lands, which are utilised, may be wasted without any
purpose. As the wind is an intermittent source, the power production
is not viable and non-predictable. So different types of renewable
resources are developed to compensate the loss, and conventional
power plants are used.
In conventional systems, the swept area depends upon the
diameter of the turbines from the middle part to the blade tip. Usually
the blade tip strike by wind creates the energy.

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 As the fig. shows that there are similarities between Airborne
Wind Turbine and Ground based wind turbine. The AWT set-up does
not have tower, structure to support the whole system instead only a
tether need to be attached to the ground which will not cost you much
in terms of money.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL AND AWT

There is no difference between conventional and AWT system
in terms of power production relation. AWT system also works on the
same aerodynamic principle of conventional system. Here the power
production depends upon the velocity and density of the wind.

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 Po α ½ ƥair. V3wind

Here the AWT also follows the same equation for power production.
The main fundamental attraction of AWT is the ability to sweep
through a larger portion of the sky through its larger wings. Just like
the conventional systems, the larger wing foils extract the wind
power, which is available consistently throughout 24 hours of a day.
The AWT systems wind foil system rotates on a certain pattern,
which is controlled by a steering control mechanism. The wind
patterns are usually consistent and higher as the altitude moves up.
Thus, a small change in wind speed causes a huge difference in wind
power production, since wind speed yields 8 times more power. Like
the conventional turbine blade the airfoil flies at higher speed to
extract more energy. The energy being extracted by the AWT system
is 10 times of the conventional system production.

SWEPT AREA COMPARISON

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 As the swept area increases the total power produced also
increases. As the diagram shows that swept area is more than the
swept area by conventional system. If swept area is 2 times the swept
area of the conventional system then the power produced also will be
2 times.

Height to Swept Area

The swept area concept plays one of the key factor here. The swept
area is relatively 8 times the normal system. Shown by the diagram.
The amount of energy or power increases with increase in swept area
region. One airborne system is equal to two conventional system in
terms of total cost for the same output power.

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AERODYNAMIC PRINCIPLE
There are two forces, which governs the field of aerodynamics.
They are Lift and Drag force. The magnitude of lift and drag depends
upon the shape of an object, its orientation to the direction of fluid
stream coming towards it. Drag forces are the forces, which is
experienced by an object that is in line with the direction of the
airflow. In addition, the force, which is perpendicular with the airflow
direction, is lift.
Lift forces are smallest when air stream strike is at zero angle to
the flat plate. ‘Angle of attack’ is the relative angle at which air
stream strikes the surface of an object with respect to the reference
line of the object. A low pressure region is called ‘Leeward’ side of
the plate as a result of increase in velocity on that side. The Leeward
side is negatively pressurized side, where the velocity of the air flow
is stronger which causes the object to lift. And the downward surface
will have positive pressure such that the positive pressure side moves

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up to fill the negative pressure side and causing the blades or surface
to rotate.

HIGHER ALTITUDE OPERATION

At the ground level operation the wind flow is inconsistent and

is intermittent. So what happens when we go up ? As the wind speed
increases with increase in altitude there is a consistent and stronger
wind resource available. At an altitude of 2000 feet wind speeds are
blowing at a much higher rate and time than ground condition (Almost
like 8m/s). This makes the whole world as wind extraction hub. At
35000 feet average power densities is beyond 20 kw/m2 and the total
energy availability through higher altitude wind power is in
TW(terawatts), much higher than the rate at which conventional wind
energy resource. Through AWT system the world’s total energy
demand can be solved without any other source assistance. From
environmental perspective, this system results in a negligible cooling
effect of 0.040c . In addition, switching to the world’s cheapest clean
fuel causes no harm to the environment; it’s a clean, carbon free
system. Has a very good positive impact on our environment. Through
installing more and more number of high efficient airborne wind
turbine systems. The total carbon footprint will reduce gradually as
this is a clean energy and the fuel used here is air, which is abundant
in nature.
Now many companies are interested in tapping this resource
energy in their own ideas and ways. Harnessing high-altitude wind is
not an easy job as like conventional system. It needs more creativity to
make the system safe for power production. There are many technical

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difficulties involved in power extraction, which will be discussed
later.

At 400 feet (left), at 2,000 feet (rt image)

(image: Joby Energy).

This data compares the wind resource availability in the ground level
few feet from ground (erected structure in ground) and at a higher
altitude a in the air. So, this makes the AWT special in terms of power
production.
The median power density increases as altitude goes up. For 1
meter elevation approximately 0.25 W/m2 power density is obtained.
Capacity factors raises upto 80% when compared to 35% for the
ground based wind turbines.

CLASSIFICATION AND DESIGN

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 There are three ways to primarily classify AWT. They are 1)
according to altitude: low, boundary layer or troposphere; 2) type of
airfoil: lighter or heavier than air, rigid or flexible, drag, lift, or
rotorcraft based, and 3) generator location and type: ground or
airborne. Today we can see that many companies are blooming and
take initiative in creating their own wind turbines for higher altitudes.
Early those days it was the era of ground based wind turbines.
Nowadays trend is changing towards tapping the highest possible
wind energy from altitudes more than 2000 feet. Every industry
possibly creates their ideas into computer models, which is not equal
to the real prototype. The scaled prototype or the real prototype only
always the results for the product they have imagined and created for
the real world and running them in practical difficulties is always
something. Joby energy is one among them who dreamt of about
AWT since a long-time ago. They tried and made it possible and
showed others and to the world, way for tapping wind energy at
higher altitudes. They initially had ground based generator designs,
autogyro concepts and they finally moved to the status of winged
airborne wind turbines, a real achievement, and a milestone.
The total is made lightweight and is installed in the main airfoil
system itself. And this system totally control the flying movement of
the system. They follow a certain pattern while flying slightly inclined
to extract the most power from the wind blowing. To avoid direct
attainment of much higher altitude by the airfoil due to blowing of
high-speed wind in a single blow, they have a steering control
mechanism on-board in the flying system. So more energy will be
extracted for a longer time period.

TETHER

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 The tether consists of co-axial conductors, which transmits
electricity, which is produced. The DC current produced is transmitted
through this tether wire. It is made of synthetic fibres over the
conductors to provide strength to withstand the tension arise to hold
the airborne system. And this tether only holds the airborne system to
the ground. Concentric type tether is used here and insulator in-
between those two conductors.
The tether is one of the most important part of the system as it
holds the total system to ground for support and mooring is done by
this to the required level.

Tether Turbine blades

TURBINE BLADES
The turbine blades are made up of carbon fibre composite
material. It provides more strength, durability, and increases
efficiency. These blades act as a motor for the take-off initially in
vertical direction and then it switches over to generator type for power
production. This is due aerodynamic properties. And then system path
is controlled by the computer flight system to grace it’s specified path.

MOTOR-GENERATOR
At initial take-off the turbine system works as rotor. And then
the wind at higher altitude provides necessary velocity to produce

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power. As the wind velocity will be much higher, the light weight
generator will efficiently utilise and extract maximum energy.
Nowadays direct drive are getting famous and is implemented in this
also and variable pitch hub is used for optimal spinning of generator.

Motor-Generator Airframe model

AIRFRAME
The airframe is produced separately and transported easily to the
location and assembled there unlike the total wing is produced and
transported in conventional system. It reduces the total time, cost and
problem.

Airborne Tether Type Ground based wind turbine

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 Airborne wind Generator

TECHNICAL CHALLENGES

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 There are many technical challenges in AWT, one among them
most seriously considered challenge is transmitting power to ground
which is produced in the higher altitudes. Usually tethered airfoil is
used is to generate power. There comes difficulty the tether as goes up
will not be that much strong to control the airfoil as at higher altitudes
the wind gets stronger and stronger.
And promoting AWT is a problem, as it is an immature
technology, competition for taking up this and installing is difficult as
only some are interested so, the production cost is more unlike mass
production, building, testing, models, software to control, control unit,
all are more costlier before 5 to 10 years. Therefore, there was not
much development like nowadays. As technology improves the cost
effectives also increases, and the material cost goes down through
invention of smart material and Nano material technology. The
sensors cost are also reducing due to its wider use in mobile
application. The initial inspiration came from aerospace industry.
Thanks to autopilot technology, automated landing system and lot
more development, which paved way for the airborne wind turbine
development systems. Windlift, another issue initial lifting should be
supported by the system for self-take-off that should come at
reasonable rate also. This is supported by LabView graphical
programming language and another program called NI CompactRIO
ruggedized embedded instrumentation system. Operating the total
system always under high load is also an issue.

CERTIFICATION AND SAFETY

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 Deployment of wind turbines has unique set of issues, problems,
and aspects. Few years back it was difficult to control the complete
steering system but due to advancement in flight control systems now
the same system is used in this flight control system also. So precise
control of airfoil is attained. Now, even when the tether cable goes-off
at present times is not a big issue as the steering unit is totally
controlled through wireless monitoring and batteries to have a
controlled landing operate control system, the steering unit. Initially
there was restriction in flying these airborne wind turbine systems to
600 meters but nowadays the limit is raised to few thousands in a
controlled land area.
Complete set of rules, standards for design, manufacturing and
operating are there for conventional system, For India it is CWET.
Certification for airborne wind turbines is another issue where there is
no certifying body till now to control and issue the standards for the
AWT. This makes everyone to create his or her own system in a
different way without any support, may lead to unreliability of the
system, and sometimes causes major blast when crashing.
There is no standard maximum and minimum operating wind
speed at which a AWT should operate. There is no set of rules for
turbulence, co-efficient, flow analysis.

DESIGN ENVIRONMENT

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 When design is considered, the first thing comes to our mind is
to which area are we going to erect is it hilly, plain land, near ocean ?
and then resource assessment. But here it is completely different, at
higher altitudes there are chances of icing, occurrence of hailstorm,
hail, tornados, snowfall. So operating in these season becomes
difficult and impossible.

POWER GENERATION TECHNOLOGIES

We all know how ground based wind turbines produce power.
But how does a airborne system generate power? Well, there are two
types of concepts of a tethered rotorcraft to lighter than air spinning
blimps- the most popular techniques leverage one of the two basic
principles; 1) a ground based generator unit system attached to a
stronger tether cable winch which produces power as kite pulls out the
cable i.e from Kinetic energy to electrical energy. 2) Set of high-
powered lightweight propellers on-board the airfoil that drive small
airborne generators.

Demo of AWT type

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 In tether system, as the airfoil is pulled, the velocity and torque
of the tether produces power by spinning a generator on the ground,
which is attached to the rotating winch drum. There are two phases in
the airfoil system operation- traction phase and recovery phase. In the
traction phase, the tether line is pulled as wind blows and power
generation happens the length of the winch increases as it goes to the
higher altitude. Then comes the recovery phase, where after reaching
maximum winch length or higher altitude, the airfoil falls back to the
lower point, the winch is pulled off to the lower point. During this
process, the generator acts as motor to pull the winch line. This winch
pulling process consumes little power. For steering, the total system is
monitored and controlled wirelessly by a prebuilt control system,
which has co-ordinates and roll, pitch and yaw information for kite
steering. This is controlled fully by the software systems on the
ground, which transmits information wirelessly. The steering system,
which has sensors, transmits its position wirelessly and the ground
software system and this software system do logarithmic operation
and execute command. As this technology creeps in slowly at the
same time fossil fuel consumption also reduces. One can say that this
is the future of power source. All the companies now working on how
to transmit power more efficiently, they are perfecting flight control
system. Nowadays vertical take-off and landing is made possible
thanks to the technology development.
For a metre elevation, about 0.25 w/m2 power is produced. As
height is limited to 2000ft. many 300kw models are only tested now
for the on-shore lands and ultimately 3-30MW production are planned
for the off-shore areas.

CONCLUSION

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 The technology for the future, when all the fossil fuels dries up
the world’s total energy needs will met by these type of renewable
source. One among those resources is airborne wind turbine systems,
which will become a matured technology in next few years. This
energy is now one among the alternate energy; sooner this will grab
everyone’s attention and will become main source of energy. This is a
clean, efficient, non-polluting source of system. Reduction in carbon
footprint and global warming will occur automatically when use of
this clean energy and fuel majorly contributes power production
throughout the world.

References
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[1] "20% Wind Energy by 2030," U.S. Department of Energy, DOE/GO-102008-
2567, July 2008.

[2] G. L. Johnson, Wind Energy Systems (Prentice-Hall, 1985).

[3] C. L. Archer and K. Caldeira, "Global Assessment of High-Altitude Wind

Power," Energies 2, 307 (2009).

[4] B. W. Roberts et al., "Harnessing High-Altitude Wind Power," IEEE

Transactions on Energy Conversion 22. No. 1, 135 (2007).

[5] M. Canale et al, "Power Kites for Wind Energy Generation," IEEE Trans. of
Control Systems 18, No. 2, 279 (2007).

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