Abstract
Tethered wings that fly fast in a crosswind direction have the ability to highly concentrate the abundant wind power resource in medium and high altitudes, and promise to make this resource available to human needs with low material investment. This chapter introduces the main ideas behind airborne wind energy, attempts a classification of the basic concepts that are currently pursued, and discusses its physical foundations and fundamental limitations.
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Acknowledgments
The author thanks the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, and Reinhart Paelinck, the Delft University of Technology, Roland Schmehl, PJ Shepard, and Makani Power for some of the illustrations in this chapter. This research was supported by Research Council KUL: PFV/10/002 Optimization in Engineering Center OPTEC, GOA/10/09 MaNet and GOA/10/11 Global real- time optimal control of autonomous robots and mechatronic systems. Flemish Government: IOF/KP/SCORES4CHEM, FWO: PhD/postdoc grants and projects: G.0320.08 (convex MPC), G.0377.09 (Mechatronics MPC); IWT: PhD Grants, projects: SBO LeCoPro; Belgian Federal Science Policy Office: IUAP P7 (DYSCO, Dynamical systems, control and optimization, 2012-2017); EU: FP7- EMBOCON (ICT-248940), FP7-SADCO (MC ITN- 264735), ERC ST HIGHWIND (259 166), Eurostars SMART, ACCM.
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Diehl, M. (2013). Airborne Wind Energy: Basic Concepts and Physical Foundations. In: Ahrens, U., Diehl, M., Schmehl, R. (eds) Airborne Wind Energy. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39965-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39965-7_1
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