KiteGen Research High Altitude Wind Generation...

[ChristianH]

The Baler has it’s own motor, it is geared in such a way to maintain position especially with an external brake and motor power. The Baler, Orbital reel, and Depower all have hand crank inputs as an option to power the winch, which could be useful for sailing

The the Baler is under its own power and able to rotate without the clutch. The clutch serves to link the Orbital reel, Depower reel, and/or the Baler primarily for computational ease. Now the winch is able to split power between any of the motors providing redundancy in case of motor loss and/or heat management. The winch works in such a way that all of the motors can link together and share the same axle. This means for looping procedures, the winch uses minimal power and needs less computational control. Under manual control it is as easy as a fishing reel. This mode is also great for sailing where one might not want to manage all the lines while conducting maneuvers. One would primarily use the tether winch to steer the kite.

However, with an AWES we can use computational energy to produce an order of magnitude more electrical energy. In this mode we would not use the clutch. This is not a problem as only the Baler uses minimal power, All the other reels/motors employ regenerative braking.

We would monitor the current and RPMs to determine tension and distance.
The overall control scheme would be to maintain the proper relative differences between the tethers to maintain a predictable flight path. Ideally we want a predictable circular flight path. Once this is achieved we want to maintain those relative tether lengths and release line via regenerative braking to generate power.

@PierreB

I am afraid that the use of sensors and RPM-check would not change anything until a mechanical way is found?

Unfortunately I have not determined a mechanical solution to rotate the baler and perform loops automatically as knowing Kite RPM is necessary to know what rate to turn the associated reels/baler… I have really tried to think of ways to avoid telemetry and cameras and keep sensors all local. Beyond that, I couldn’t devise a strictly mechanical system to process visual information into data… This will most likely have to be done via camera and software.
If the position of the kite was known and you still wanted to do this mechanically, the winch would become more dense, and appear more like some kind of swiss clock than a piece of line management tool

[PierreB]

@PierreB

Nevertheless, it might be worth going to the end of this discussion to see what a KiteGen KSU (which is a reeling = reel-in/out = pumping = yo-yo AWES) adapting the OKE system to make loops easier would look like, if it is achievable.

I’m going to correct this sentence here but leave it as it is in its place. Indeed KiteGen has two main products: KiteGen Research » KiteGen STEM , which is a reeling AWES as specified above; but also KiteGen Research » KiteGen Carousel which is a carousel AWES including several KSU with constant line length (apart from take-off and landing) in its main variant.

So @ChristianH that means that your OKE design could be a KiteGen KSU as it stands, with no major changes, but only for the carousel version. Indeed it can tow a boat just like a carousel. A control of the angle of the loop is suitable during the travel on the carousel, for a better optimization, as for the described control of the figure-eight.

Things are different to achieve an OKE version of the KiteGen KSU for the Stem version, which is a reeling (reel-out/in, yo-yo, pumping…) AWES, where power is achieved during tether reel-out phase while the baler and the kite are both rotating. As we agree, the positive point is the tiny required power consumption of the motor to rotate the baler, above all with a large kite leading to a lower angular speed.

@ChristianH

The the Baler is under its own power and able to rotate without the clutch. The clutch serves to link the Orbital reel, Depower reel, and/or the Baler primarily for computational ease.

For the reeling (yo-yo…) AWES (KiteGen Stem version here), with reel-out power phase when the lines extend, I think there should be a complete separation (if it is possible) between the motorized rotor disk driving the baler (and requiring minimal power), and the winch driving the generator-motor.