Experimental Modelling of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine

Leading wind turbine manufacturers are increasingly looking at the possibilities of sending offshore wind turbines to deep seas. This can be done using a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT). Therefore FOWT is an interesting and timely field of study. The aim of the paper is to use System Identification (SI) to make a data-driven-based model for the FOWT system, located in Offshore Wind & Wave Laboratory at Aalborg University. This is achieved by conducting experiments and analyzing the data. SI is used to analyze data from the experiments and obtain different models. These models are then evaluated based on the fit, the frequency response, autocorrelation and cross-correlation. Eventually, an AutoRegressive Moving Average and Extra input (ARMAX) model is shown to be the most accurate amongst the analyzed models.