Hydropower is a flexible energy source that is essential for balancing the electrical power system on all timescales, from seconds to years. In addition to intra-hour regulation, it provides frequency containment reserves (FCR-N,FCR-D) and frequency restoration reserves (mFRR, aFRR) to the grid. The turbine governor is a device responsible for controlling the power output and delivering frequency control to the system. The aim of this Master’s Thesis project is to develop a new hydropower turbine governor in MATLAB/Simulink, which contains all critical functionality from the existing governor and with the same performance. The new governor should as far as possible comply to the well-established communication standard IEC 61850. A working model of the turbine governor has been built in Simulink that supports normal operation with frequency control, start and stop, load rejection, operation mode as synchronous condenser and more. Validations of the model against data from Akkats powerplant shows that the model behaves as a real governor during normal operation. Validations of the start sequence showed deviations during sequence 3 and 4 which can be explained by usage of different PID parameters. Using IEC 61850 as a nomenclature and as a way of structuring functions in the governor has also been possible. Implementing the whole standard for communication, requires that the control system also is renewed according to IEC 61850. Certain functions, as sequencing has thus not been done according to the standard. MATLAB and Simulink provide tools for building, simulating and testing implementations of the turbine governor. The contributions this platform can provide are; ease of implementation, optimization and testing of control strategies. Simulink also provides a graphical interface, which reduce system complexity. An optimal implementation requires a hardware with support for Simulink to get a transparent platform. Ultimately, these benefits could result in better frequency quality at a lower cost, which is essential for successful and cost-effective integration of other renewable energy sources such as wind- and solar power.

Increased demands on fuel-efficient propulsion motivate the use of complex hybrid hydromechanical transmissions in heavy construction machines. These transmissions offer attractive fuel savings but come with an increased level of complexity and dependency on computer-based control. This trend has increased the use of computer-based simulations as a cost-effective alternative to hardware prototyping when developing and testing control strategies. Hardware-In-the-Loop (HWIL) simulations that combine physical and virtual model representations of a system may be considered an attractive compromise that combine the benefits of these two concepts. This paper explores how HWIL simulations may be used to evaluate powertrain control strategies for hybrid hydromechanical transmissions. Factors such as hardware/software partitioning and causality are discussed and applied to a test rig used for HWIL simulations of an example transmission. The results show the benefit of using HWIL simulations in favour of pure offline simulations and prototyping and stress the importance of accurate control with high bandwidth in the HWIL interface.

Cette thèse développe une nouvelle approche de contrôle pour les avions à échelle réduite. Les lois de commande proposées exploitent un modèle non linéaire simple mais pertinent des forces aérodynamiques appliquées à l’aéronef. Ils reposent sur une structure hiérarchique de contrôle non linéaires, et sont synthétisées sur la base d’analyse de stabilité et de convergence théoriques. Ils sont conçus pour fonctionner sur un large domaine de vol. En particulier, ils évitent les singularités associées à la paramétrisation de l'attitude et la direction de la vitesse. Dans un premier temps, le problème de stabilisation de trajectoires de référence est résolu en étendant la méthode du "thrust vectoring", utilisée pour les véhicules à voilure tournante, au cas des aéronefs à voilure fixe. Dans le cas des avions, le principal défi est de prendre en compte les forces aérodynamiques dans la conception des systèmes de commande. Afin de résoudre ce problème, le contrôle proposé est conçu et analysé sur la base du modèle de forces aérodynamique proposé. Le domaine d'utilisation de cette loi de commande est élargi et englobe les trajectoires d'équilibre (trim trajectories) qui sont classiquement utilisées dans la littérature. Cette solution est ensuite adaptée au problème de suivi de chemin, afin de concevoir des lois de guidage cinématique et de contrôle dynamique applicables à presque tout chemin 3D régulier. Les lois de contrôle proposées contiennent des termes intégraux qui robustifient le contrôle vis-à-vis de dynamiques non modélisées. Plusieurs problèmes pratiques sont adressés et les lois de commande proposées sont validées par des simulations du type "hardware-in-the-loop". Enfin, des résultats d'essais en vol illustrent la performance des lois de contrôle proposées. / The present thesis develops a new control approach for scale-model airplanes. The proposed control solutions exploit a simple but pertinent nonlinear model of aerodynamic forces acting on the aircraft. Nonlinear controllers are based on a hierarchical structure, and are derived on the basis of theoretical stability and convergence analyses. They are designed to operate on a large spectrum of operating conditions. In particular, they avoid the singularities associated with the parameterization of the attitude and the heading of the vehicle, and do not rely on a decoupling between longitudinal and lateral dynamics. First, the trajectory tracking problem is addressed by extending the thrust vectoring method used for small rotor vehicles to the case of fixed wing vehicles. In the case of airplanes, the main challenge is to take into account the aerodynamic forces in the design of control systems. In order to solve this problem, the proposed control is designed and analyzed on the basis of the proposed aerodynamic forces model. The flight envelope is thus broadened beyond trim trajectories which are classically used in the literature. This solution is then adapted to the path following problem, and kinematic guidance and dynamic control laws are developed within a single coherent framework that applies to almost any regular 3D path. The proposed control laws incorporate integral terms that robustify the control with respect to unmodelled dynamics. Several practical issues are addressed and the proposed control laws are validated via hardware-in-the-loop simulations. Finally, successful flight test results illustrate the soundness and performance of the proposed control laws.