I first have to express that most any strategy can “work”.
This is how I concluded video to be the best for OKE at the moment.
Close your eyes and imagine flying a multi line power kite, as compared to a “kite drone” attached with a single tether. Which would be harder to fly? Your senses don’t have enough data to fly the drone (well), you would need some type of flight controller to take care of certain variables. Whereas kiteboarders (with multi line kites) are taught to not stare at the kite.
This is to say I think it is possible for a multi line kite to be controlled, just like a competent human with tension control. You can be reasonably certain if the lines are of equal tension with a sturdy kite, that the kite will at least not crash (in most conditions.)
Now to pair this with visual sensing, we would train a neural network to predict the possibility of which pixel the kite will show up on next. A foil will behave in a similar way given the load and tension on the lines. If the tension is X, you can assume the amount of lift the kite produces. If the kite is moving across the pixels at a certain rate, (given the length of the lines stays constant) you can determine the speed and lift of the kite.
This method only works for multi tether craft because they naturally fly on the surface of a quarter sphere, wind-window.
As for the camera being expensive. The kite engine is mounted on a turret that always faces the kite (passively), on which there are rails to attach a camera. Using a fisheye lense, and a constant length of line. Many things can be determined visually and even more combined with tension sensing.
Automated control would be very much like teaching a person to fly a kite, albeit through video.
This example is ten years old now
"There is a function in openCV called “line” which will draw a line between two specified points. The angle of the line can then be found easily by trigonometry. "
Kyle Hounslow
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YoloVx should find the kite for you, i believe. From there on its maybe not too challenging.
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This video shows the details and how it works:
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Thanks Pierre, this is a condensed compilation of about 10 years of work We are ramping up to do some testing abroad… More to come.
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Looks pretty clever. Obviously, a lot of thought and work is going to this. Sometimes one dedicated person can outperform large teams. Would be nice to see it actually pulling a boat. Especially faster than existing high speed sailing configurations. Maybe it already has, in another video - don’t remember if I’ve seen it. 
Hi Christian, this video is creating a buzz.
Things are indeed getting very busy.
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Yes, generally speed records occur crosswind, the kite moving with the boat. It can be the same for a “classic” boat. However the same kite flying by crosswind figures (rotating or by figure-eight) when the boat is going downwind produces more power (as for any electricity AWES in yo-yo mode), but this is not good for speed records with the same special floats, although correct with a classic boat, the kite rotating acting like a spinnaker. So, as you indicate (if I remember correctly) OKE device with only one kite can also handle all gaits crosswind or downwind.
Crosswind both float and kite (1:34):
Crosswind kite but in probably downwind gait for a catamaran (1:12):
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There are some really great conversations going on on the YouTube. What do you think of this:
“…Sailing tangent or “Cross wind” or Beam Reach, we would keep the kite relatively static/steady. Correct. The looping would be the most beneficial for downwind runs or producing electrical power (preferably at anchor). With going down wind, consider this… (and I’m not sure, which is why I am loving your questions) Instead of a typical jibe in a zigzag directly down wind… think of a zigzag at more of a 45-degree angle. One that osculates with the looping motion of the kite… The kite line will have to be pulled in if there is slack, and let out if overpowered… It will indeed be a delicate balance.”
This possibly demonstrates a combination of the two flight schemes mentioned above
I think I could agree with what is written until “zigzag at more of a 45-degree angle” (I don’t know).
A simple description of the three modes of kite work, includes a sketch in page 5, and summarizes my previous comment in short:
We will focus on modes 1 and 3.
Mode 1, described as static crosswind kite flight, boat perpendicular to the wind: medium traction.
Mode 3, described as dynamic, crosswind kite flying in figure-eight, downwind boat: strong traction.
For speed records the mode 1 is used (first video). For strong traction or electricity generation AWES, the mode 3 is used (second video). As you know, we can replace (I think advantageously) figure-eight with rotating figure.
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