Power converter and control system developed in the Ocean Sentinel instrumentation buoy for testing wave energy converters

The Ocean Sentinel instrumentation buoy was developed for the non-grid-connected testing of wave energy converters (WECs). This surface buoy provides power analysis and data acquisition, environmental monitoring, as well as an active converter interface to control WEC-generated power dissipation in an onboard electrical load. The first deployment of the Ocean Sentinel was in the summer of 2012 for the testing of a half-scale WEC over a six-week period. This paper presents the Ocean Sentinel instrumentation buoy power converter and control system designed to enable the ocean testing of a wide range of WEC technologies with various power outputs and generator configurations.