Abstract
In recent years, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have jointly developed an open-source wave energy converter code known as WEC-Sim (Wave Energy Converter-Simulator); capable of simulating WECs of arbitrary device geometry subject to both operational and extreme waves. However, this code does not include control which has the potential to optimize power. Because of this, there has been interest in having an open-source control that works with the code. The first part of this paper lays out the development of Control-Sim which is designed to support the WEC-Sim code. Control strategies discuss in this paper include linear spring damping, latching & declutching, linear quadratic Gaussian regulator (LQG), and model predictive control (MPC). The second part demonstrates a comparison between linear damping and energy optimization MPC using WEC-Sim coupled with Control-Sim.