Building of a Practical Monitoring System for the Small Wind Turbine

The small wind power system is a renewable energy system that is more applicable to general residential or other applications. Most users of the small-scale wind power generation system come from the general population, who do not have professional technologies and concepts. A good monitoring system can provide the user with quick understanding of the operational status, efficient troubleshooting, and improvement of the whole system. The paper proposes a wireless remote monitoring system for wind systems. This system includes a host computer and a remote monitoring module. The host computer is used for command control, data collection, and analysis. It can order the remote monitoring module to operate electrical equipment, gather measured data from the remote monitoring module, and analyze these data. The operation screen of the host computer is accomplished by the LabVIEW front panel. Via interactive man-machine interface, the user can input control commands and monitor operating conditions, so the operation is simpler and more straightforward. The remote monitoring module can measure voltage, current, generator speed, and wind speed data; in addition, it can provide an electromagnetic brake for the wind turbine. The communication of the host computer and remote monitoring module is constituted through a wireless network, so the host computer can fully understand the system status wherever placed, and remotely monitor and control the entire system. The specific functions of the remote monitoring module are performed by an AVR single chip and its surrounding instrumentation. The monitoring system of this paper is expected to effectively manage the wind turbine system, improve the efficiency of the system, and provide a reference to further improve the system. This paper monitors a practical 400 W small wind turbine as an object, which verifies the practicability of this paper in practical applications.