A novel-strategy controller design for maximum power extraction in stand-alone windmill systems

This paper proposes a new control strategy for an optimal extraction of output power from stand-alone windmill systems. The system consists of a variable-speed wind turbine directly coupled to a PMSG (permanent magnet synchronous generator), a diode bridge rectifier, a DC-to-DC boost converter, and a battery bank. This control method, with its higher speed, directly creates a control signal for handling DC-to-DC converters. Adding an ESN (echo state network) to this method can result in extracting maximum power from the wind turbine without measuring the wind speed. This system is then simulated using MATLAB-SIMULINK software. The obtained simulation results show that the objective of extracting maximum power from the wind is reached. •Using a new control strategy to harvest the maximum power from windmill system.•Designing control method based on calculus of variations.•Improving of new proposed control method by ESN (echo state network).•Improving of new proposed control method by wind speed estimator.•Using a windmill system based on PMSG (permanent magnet synchronous generator) to evaluate proposed control schemes.