Our electrical division has the opportunity for hands-on experience using industry loading software such as Altrium. They design, build and test a number of the behind the scenes components that make our wind turbines work, such as PCB and power generations. New members can join in and learn how to design a control system, how to use a PI Controller, as well as the micro-controller programming on Python and C++.

A wind turbine’s electrical components usually reside within the nacelle, the body of the wind turbine.

Design and simulation projects

• Redesign the Rectifier Controller.

• Optimize the Boost Controller component values and frequency.

• Reduce heat losses of the power traces on the PCB.

Rectifier overview schematic

Software projects

• Control System Software – interfacing the control board with all sensors and actuators, monitor data. This will likely be done in Python, but may also be done in another language like C or C++.

• Implement a passive control algorithm.

Wind Turbine Simulator

• Develop a graphical simulation to model dynamic behaviour of a wind turbine.

Possible Hardware Projects

• Complete the current power board.

• Iterate improvements on the current hardware.