Welcome to Controls
The Controls subteam is responsible for developing, testing, and integrating all of our turbine’s sensors and electrical subsystems as well as the code that enables these systems to operate intelligently.
Circuit & PCB Design
Whether it be to pitch the blades, read a value from a sensor, or deliver power from the generator, circuitry is key to what do.
State Machine Logic
If the other engineering subteams are building the body of the turbine, the Controls Team builds the brain.
Prototyping & Testing
An idea might sound incredible—until you try building it. Extensive testing translates great ideas into effective implementations.
Controls
Circuit & PCB Design
In order to ensure all turbine components are working as intended, designing reliable, effective circuitry is one of the core responsibilities of the Controls subteam. We interact with all sorts of electrical components, including AC-DC and DC-DC power electronics, microcontrollers, actuators, transistors, and more!
Before building our electrical systems, we spend a few weeks learning how to use various circuit simulation software like LTSpice to determine the operating points and guiding principles of our designs to verify they will work.
Beginning with the 2024-2025 year, we began to move many of our systems from massive, sprawling breadboards to neat, compact, and well-interfacing PCBs. For many members this was their first experience designing PCBs and was a greatly rewarding opportunity to gain valuable industry experience. We currently have designed PCBs for our variable load system and our 3-phase rectifier, which takes converts the 3-phase AC power produced by our generator and converts it into a usable DC form.
Controls
State Machine Logic
As mentioned above, if the other engineering subteams build the body of the turbine, the Controls Team builds the brain. The turbine must know what it should doing at any given point in time in accordance with that year’s competition parameters. We accomplish this by implementing a finite state machine, which uses real-time sensor data and purposeful software design to dictate how the turbine acts.
This state machine is implemented on our Arduino microcontroller, which depending on the current state sends the appropriate control signals needed to operate the turbine. We sense the turbine RPM to shift the variable load around, monitor our connection to the Point of Common Coupling (the place we send the power we produce during the competition) for disconnects to initiate restart, actuate the pitch of the turbine blades, and much more.
Controls
Prototyping & Testing
In order to facilitate effective design, it is critical to maintain a clear understanding of how systems work—or don’t work—together. Accordingly, we perform prototyping and testing throughout the entire year through a variety of digital and physical mediums.
Circuit Simulations
Circuit simulation tools such as LTspice can provide meaningful insights—without ever having to build anything.
Lab Equipment
Tools such as multimeters, oscilloscopes, and power supplies play a critical role in helping Controls understand its circuitry.
Wind Tunnel
No testing is more telltale of system functionality than when recreating the competition environment itself!
Dynamometer
By spinning the turbine shaft at any desired speed, the dynamometer allows for effective testing of state control logic.
Variable Load System
Beginning with the 2024-2025 design year, we majorly overhauled our turbine by developing a variable load system which is common among top turbines in the Collegiate Wind Competition. The variable load system comprises a parallel bank of power resistors each in series with a MOSFET transistor. Throughout operation, we can turn on and off these MOSFETs to alter the parallel combination of resistances, giving us very fine grain control over the magnitude of our load. This directly translates to our ability to control the RPM of the turbine and to target peak power production zones. There are many more implementations that we can pursue in future years!
Stay Connected
Connect with and follow us on all our networking and social media platforms