Sensorless control for permanent magnet generators associated with a wind turbine emulator test-rig

This paper presents a robust sensorless control scheme to control a permanent magnet generator associated with a wind turbine emulator test-rig. A Sliding mode controller was used for speed tracking regardless the wind speed profile used in the emulator. Two sensorless estimation algorithms, Sliding mode observer and extended Kalman filter, were implemented to calculate the rotor position and speed. This sensorless control is perfectly suited for high performance and low cost small scale wind turbines. Simulation and experimental verification on the emulator test-rig are given. Also, a discrete time observer was demonstrated to estimate the wind torque.