Design and Implementation of a Rotorless Wind Turbine Simulator

Wind turbine simulators (WTS) play a crucial role in laboratory training and research on wind power systems. Existing simulators often use physical components like motors and permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSG), which are bulky and heavy. This paper proposes a rotorless WTS featuring a digitally embedded mathematical model and a power electronic converter that emulates a wind power generator. The mathematical model integrates the models of a wind turbine, a gearbox, and a PMSG, and the power electronic converter produces a single-phase AC output. The system features an AC-DC-AC converter arranged in the θ-converter topology with a rectification leg, a neutral leg and an inversion leg, eliminating the need for external DC sources or isolation transformers. Independent controllers for the rectification, neutral, and inversion legs are proposed to ensure multiple objectives are met at the same time. Simulation and experimental results are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness in replicating a physical wind turbine-PMSG system.