An Updated Taxonomy for Airborne Wind Energy Designs

I am posting a revision 3 here with a list of actors, classified by the system

an_updated_classification_scheme_for_airborne_wind_energy_designs.pdf (140.1 KB)

Edit: Revision 4 here an_updated_classification_scheme_for_airborne_wind_energy_designs.pdf (141.9 KB)

Tallak:
As Roddy points out, it;s nice to see someone cite a category besides kite-reeling and Makani. I would just ask that you consider this, in relation to that:
It is me who originally promoted the whole “driveshaft”, “rotation” and “torque” category, and it was my actual working demo that spun for two days and was featured on newspaper articles after the first High Altitude Wind Energy conference over a decade ago.
It seems that there is an effort to recognize only teams making false promises, publishing group-selfies, “renting office space”, and taking investors’ money, whether they are making any progress or not. The fact that I am not currently issuing false press-releases or group-selfies, and not currently trying to take investors’ money, does not mean I am not active in the space, so, on the one hand, it is good that after 14 years of limited progress of other methods, at least a spinning airborne wind energy device is being discussed and sometimes even built by the AWE crowd, it might be nice to acknowledge my existence as the originator of demonstrating such devices, which are the simplest and most direct AWE scheme introduced thusfar, or currently under consideration. My company name is Selsam Innovations. SuperTurbine as a concept was funded by The California Energy Commission. This is real, not just hypothetical. You certainly have my permission to use my name or the name of my company when discussing my concepts. Thank you. :slight_smile:

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Sorry. This is a work in progress. I realize its a bit cheeky to spell the company name wrong. But at least I got it on the list. So its a start, and I will update this.

One reason maybe is that the company did not get a lot of attention in the current fold of «hot european AWE» companies.

I was also going to mention that I am open to adding any relevant companies or groups or even just designs not on the list. That being said, I am not about writing a history book here, just a selection of interesting companies or projects

Is there really only one reeling company out there, and also one of the few actually producing power? [Kitewinder]

Fourth revision, fixing a company name and adding some “other descriptive terms”

Other suggested companies and terms are welcome.

an_updated_classification_scheme_for_airborne_wind_energy_designs.pdf (141.9 KB)

Some more info on Selsam Innovations:

Selsam Innovations is located in Oak Hills, California, USA

Selsam Innovations is one of the very few AWE companies with a track record of designing, manufacturing, and selling wind turbines.

Selsam Innovations is a recognized player in the wind energy industry, credited with inventing most currently-pursued floating foundation concepts, starting with the “Spar Buoy” concept:
LINKS:

https://nawindpower.com/new-u-s-patent-awarded-for-floating-offshore-wind-turbines

Selsam Innovations is debt-free.

Selsam Innovations has never declared bankruptcy.

Selsam Innovations owns our own offices, test facility, and production shop, in a high-wind location.

Selsam Innovations is the only AWE player whose facility is in fact wind-powered.

Selsam Innovations is one of the original AWE companies, and one the few surviving AWE companies from the early days of the current AWE hype-cycle remaining active today.

Selsam Innovations has had a grid-tied coaxial, multi-rotor turbine with a downwind driveshaft angled upward, running here continuously for about ten (10) years now, pausing only for blade replacements due to wear from dust.

As founder, and the original inventor of the “laddermill” concept in 1978, I have perhaps the longest documented track record of verified AWE inventive activity, of any and all current AWE players (?)

And sorry if this is redundant, but for someone reading this for the first time, here is a video of a demo of that first AWE prototype demonstrated at the first (and only) High Altitude WIndpower Conference, partially rebuilt after a crash, taken recently, here at our Oak Hills, California wind-powered research facility:

The full version of Selsam Innovations’ early AWE prototype was a key factor in starting the whole idea of AWE, when it won a Popular Science Magazine “Invention of the Year” Award in 2008.
LINKS:

Selsam Innovations has been the subject of two (2) Discovery Channel documentaries filmed and aired. Here is an outtake from one that includes the Sky Serpent AWE experimental prototype on a not-so windy day:
LINK:

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Crikey Doug, we got the point a long time ago. You da man.

One more problem with bounding - Sphere bound - all of the “hovering” designs are bound to the surface of a sphere by fixed tether lengths when in operation

Whereas “bounding” knows no such boundary

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bounding

adjective

  1. Moving with a bound or bounds.

So… undulating?

I dont think bounding is confusing like «lift» and «drag» mode AWE. Nor as discriminating and imprecise as «flygen» and «groundgen»

If I was to suggest lift and drag mode today, what would you say?

I think hovering vs bounding is a pair of fine words. They will grow on us. Now we just need to spread the word[s]…

:rofl:

Youre a poet but didnt know it…

With whirling it is the blade that is whirled around by the whirling arm or shaft, so not the right word I think.

Like in the linked pdf, a noun makes more sense to use than a verb in a taxonomy. So “tethered bounding flight” and “tethered hovering flight”.

And tethered rotary flight is not covered by tethered bounding flight as rotary is all gas all the time, which tethered bounding flight would not be.

Also I, or everyone, don’t have every companies’ product in my head so maybe add pictures of the product.

I disagree that Makani is hovering for example. It is bounding across the sky. I disagree to a lesser degree that ZhongLu is bounding for example. It is not bounding across the sky, it switches between hovering and swooping.

the meaning of bounding is unique to AWE but stems from bounding flight in birds. Not related to boundaries or anything like that.

Makani is not bounding because it does not reorganize its shape to reduce drag. Zhonglhu does that, and it is bounding.

The match between bounding at Zhonglhu and bird flight is accidental kind of. Bounding in awe means that power is generated by drifting downwind, then at some point you would normally need to return upwind without spending the same amount of energy produced earlier.

The word will grow on us… no worries

If it needs to grow on us it’s not good enough unfortunately.

But it is a better candidate word than “hovering,” which means something like to stay in one place in the air, usually by moving the wings quickly which Makani’s concept certainly didn’t do. You can’t just define a word to mean the opposite of the standard definition.

It certainly is hovering, flying about without moving anywhere

Thanks Roddy, whatever “Crikey” means.
I’m not seeking any glory here.
My point is that so far most attempts to categorize and list all the approaches and researchers of AWE have not mentioned me, a key founder, and ongoing researcher, of AWE.
Of course they were too busy being fixated on “kite-reeling”, and watching the rest go bankrupt to notice a guy way over in California who helped get their whole fantasy going with a regular wind turbine stretched into the sky, but has not spent a lot of energy lately making false promises or otherwise seeking inordinate attention like so many of the rest.

Now that people are at least beginning to admit that rotation might have a place in the future of wind energy, I’m just reminding anyone constructing such a list that I’m still in business over here, and I have quite a track record in AWE, so if I am not in someone’s list, the list is incomplete. As far as worrying about the definition of hovering or whatever, I’ll leave that to other armchair geniuses for now.

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I prefer by far @rschmehl 's classification.
The main problem was the use of the terms “lift” and “drag”, confusing with their meaning in regular wind energy. These terms are not included in this classification, which has, in addition to defining the categories with understandable (and understood) technical terms, the advantage of being concise, fitting on a small page.

Now imagine that all AWE publications have to be re-issued with a new glossary. That would be adding confusion to confusion. As an example the Reeling 2.0, a variation to reeling energy transfer Kitewinder topic was not well grasped: the text on the drawing of the kite was: “hovering kite power design”. The clarity came later with the drawing of a propeller. Indeed the term “hovering” could only create confusion: we did not know if the kite was rotating (being stationary) or if it flied crosswind by a more or less stationary swept area (as for fly-gen, unlike that of a yo-yo system). Moreover the “reeling” term leads to an additional confusion between Kiwee-like and kite-reeling (reel-in/out (yo-yo)) mode. And Kiwee is not more a “rotary” AWE by the present classification…

So I wouldn’t do the “bound”.

You seem to misunderstand. We did the discussion about which terms were the best ones in the other thread. You all said your opinions, then did nothing about the sorry state of affairs about «lift», «drag», «flygen» and «groundgen».

This time I am doing something to kickstart a movement that in some years maybe can make things at least more right. I thank you all for feedback, but I am not really asking at this point. This is my choice now.

If I can get traction on this, it may put rotary back in the fold.

But it seems you are not the early adopters I need to kick this off. I would have certainly hoped given many of you are invested in progress here, but I need to find another way on this. Certainly spending time to convince you guys it not well spent.

And if it fizzles, well at least I tried.

Reminds me a lot of when I was trying to become an entrepeneur. So many people were getting paid to give me good advice which I eventually figured out was useless. I just needed to forget all that «free help» and just get on with the job

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You are wrong. See Stationary and downwind AWES as the two main AWE categories?

No, I disagree. Bounding and hovering are fancy definitions. I just proved it by your using “hovering” term in your reeling 2 topic, followed by a general misunderstanding, as I just mentioned.

There you go again. Heading me off to another thread without having the decency to explain what I should find there.

I don’t understand how one definition is fancy and one is not. I am talking about definitions that are confusing (“lift” and “drag”, or inaccurate “flygen” and “ground gen”). And you give me… fancy. I can only say my conclusions that I don’t want you all to necessarily agree on this is only strengthened by your reply.

Let me say - I did read all your feedback. I did really appreciate it. All of it. I did take most of it back to my text through revisions. I was never just asking if “bounding” and “hovering” were to your taste. I already decided on these terms. They make sense to me, and will maybe to many others also.

I do hovever, still appreciate suggestions to how the text can be improved, just not of the kind “it sucks”. It has to be something I could work with.

If the focus is on the type of movement that the kite goes through I’m thinking there needs to be 4 categories instead of 2. One for one dimensional movement up and down the tether, or downwind (ZhongLu), one for one dimensional no movement along the tether (Kitewinder), one for movement downwind and also crosswind (Kitemill), and one for no movement downwind but crosswind movement (Makani).

You just can’t put Kitewinder and Makani in the same category. Yes I could agree that Kitewinder could be hovering, like a helicopter could be hovering. No, I don’t agree that flying as fast as possible in circles is hovering. The focus in hovering is on the stationary part.

I like blade as the level of analysis. How many possible categories are there if you use plant as your level of analysis? Not enough I think.

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@Windy_Skies Windy I like the flight dimensionality approach.

Although
Selsamish VS Soon_to_be_obsolete
Is another potential base level classifier we could consider

Also it’s not
Transmission shafts which turn whirling blades, the wind does, the transmission retards rotation and expansion.

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I think the fundamental issue here is you should be writing on the other thread. I am not asking for the fundamental insight into how many categories and whatnot.

I am just asking for feedback on the text. Its not all up for grabs. If I got it all wrong, make a new document and convince me!

Some people like a detailed tree, some like categories, some like this or that. There is not a right and wrong answer to this.

I happen to like few categories. It doesn’t make sense to me to make super detailed categories, until every single design has it’s own box.

The hovering vs bounding seems really fundamental to me. Same goes for how energy is transmitted. So this is enough for this to make sense to me. For me less is more. And again, this is my document now.

There is no travel up and down the tether. There may be no tether at all. There may be crosswind, and then there may not be any. In my scheme of categorization, the only thing that matters is; are you producing while the blades are drifting downwind, and then using force + speed to generate power, or are the blades moving at a fixed distance from some point on the ground.

Only ground point, wind and blades. Nothing more. Anything more complicated is less fundamental. You can have those too, but I don’t care so much about that, personally

Well. In this context we are just reusing the words hovering and bounding, which are from bird flight, to a specific meaning for a completely new thing. We could invent new words as these are new things, but that doesn’t make sense to me. So any word we choose will now be overloaded with both the old and the new meaning. This is perfectly ok, and very common. It will grow on you. Hovering now means two things…

Why is rotating around center of gravity very different from rotating around another point? This is all very subjective… Ayways, it has two meanings now, like for a bird hovering, and for and AWE that doesnt drift downwind

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