Multi-Rotor Wind Turbine Control Network With Synchronized Safety Timing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Multi-rotor wind turbine systems face challenges in creating a control system that handles increased complexity while maintaining safety functionality and existing control network integrity, particularly in ensuring deterministic behavior and precise timing for safety-critical functions across multiple rotor-nacelle assemblies.
Innovation Solution
A control network with a hierarchical architecture, featuring a central network and local networks, utilizes a synchronisation device to provide critical timing information and coordinate actions, with a master node in the central network synchronizing data transmission across the entire system, ensuring safety-related functions execute within required time constraints.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a control network connects multiple rotor-nacelle assemblies in a unified manner, then the system can achieve coordinated control and safety functionality, but the network complexity increases by an order of magnitude compared to individual RNA control networks
Solution Approach 1:
The control network is segmented into multiple independent Ethernet segments, each serving a specific rotor-nacelle assembly or functional group. Each segment operates with its own master node for clock synchronization, isolating timing-critical functions to local segments while allowing inter-segment communication for coordinated control. This segmentation prevents complexity from propagating across the entire system while maintaining unified safety functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a hierarchical dimension to the control network architecture, with master nodes at multiple levels (individual RNA level, group level, and central level). This multi-level hierarchy organizes the complexity vertically rather than horizontally, allowing local segments to operate independently while maintaining system-wide coordination through the hierarchical structure.
2Reliability
If safety-related deterministic networks are designed for individual RNAs, then safety functions can execute within required time constraints, but connecting such networks to other networks compromises safety performance by losing clock synchronisation and worst-case time knowledge
Solution Approach 1:
The deterministic safety network is segmented into isolated Ethernet segments, each with its own master node that maintains independent clock synchronization. This segmentation preserves the deterministic timing characteristics within each segment while allowing the segments to be connected to form a larger distributed system. The isolation ensures that safety-critical timing information remains intact within each segment despite network expansions.
Solution Approach 2:
Each Ethernet segment is pre-configured with its own master node and clock synchronization mechanism before being connected to other segments. This preliminary setup ensures that deterministic timing and safety performance are established at the segment level, and these properties are preserved when segments are interconnected, rather than attempting to synchronize the entire distributed network as a single unit.
3Reliability
If the control system treats the overall arrangement as a single machine to comply with IEC standards, then unified control and safety emulation are achieved, but the existing functionality of individual RNA control systems must be compromised or completely redesigned
Solution Approach 1:
The control architecture implements multi-functionality at multiple levels: individual RNA control systems maintain their existing safety and control functions, while master nodes provide additional functions for inter-RNA coordination, clock synchronization, and system-wide safety management. This universal approach allows the same control platform to operate both as an independent RNA controller and as part of the unified multi-RNA system, eliminating the need for complete redesign.
Solution Approach 2:
The individual RNA control systems are nested within the unified multi-RNA control architecture. Each RNA maintains its own complete control system with full safety functionality, which is then embedded within the larger system through hierarchical master node connections. This nested structure allows individual RNA controllers to operate autonomously while simultaneously participating in coordinated system-wide control, preserving existing functionality while achieving unified safety emulation.
Data Source
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AI summary
A control network (54) for a wind turbine system (2), the wind turbine system (2) comprising multiple rotor-nacelle assemblies (6) mounted on a support structure (4), the control network (54) comprising: a respective local network (48) associated with each rotor-nacelle assembly (6), each local network (48) comprising multiple nodes (50, 52); a central network (22) that is connected to each local network (48), the central network (22) comprising multiple nodes (24, 26); and a synchronisation device that synchronises data transmission throughout the control network (54).