Abstract

The purpose of this diploma thesis is to develop and implement a measurement system for small wind turbine applications and the monitoring system of the measurements, remotely. The implementation is entirely based on the open source philosophy with emphasis on the flexibility of the applications as well as the minimization of the cost.

The system can be divided in three subsystems: The printed circuit board (PCB) which is connected to the wind turbine and its inputs are the desirable measurands, the microcontroller which consists of the analog to digital converters and feeds the converted signals to the post processing software module. This includes the database that stores the measurements and the software written in Python that processes the measurements and gives the user useful statistical analysis tools, compliant with the IEC 61400-12-1international standards.

Initially, basic concepts and the small wind turbine characteristics are introduced, as well as the reasons this application was implemented. Subsequently, sensors and the various ways of measuring electric signals are referred to while the presentation of basic concepts concerning microproccessors and microcontrollers follows. An analysis also takes place regarding the analog to digital conversion.

Then, the IEC standards, that suggest the specifications of the data acquisition system and the processing of the measurands, are presented. This processing was implemented in Python and with the assistance of other programming tools which are analyzed afterwards.

Finally, the final choice of hardware elements becomes clear as well as the final configuration of the microcontroller in a way that it satisfies the need of the application in the best possible way.

GitLab: https://gitlab.com/smartRUE-wtg-datalogger

Key words: data logger, data acquisition system, sensors, instrumentation, microcontrollers, mini computers, STMicroelectronics, energy metering, power curve, communication protocols, IEC standards, Web interface, Python

Author: Dimitris Ikonomopoulos

Responsible PhD: Athanasios Vassilakis / avassil@mail.ntua.gr and Thomas Pazios / tompaz@mail.ntua.gr

Supervising Professor: Nikos Hatziargyriou / nh@power.ece.ntua.gr

PDF: Full version (Greek) and Short version (English)