Development of a high speed wideband frequency tunable infra-red laser source for real-time wind turbine array sensing applications

The global demand for low emission and renewable energy production continues to increase. Wind turbine-based power generators, harnessing the kinetic energy from wind continue to proliferate owing to its potential for scalability and ease of deployment. To enable maximum efficiency of the turbines, it is necessary to integrate complex real-time sensing systems to monitor the magnitude and direction of the wind front. This paper reports the development of an advanced LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) system for monitoring the profile of the incoming wind front. By using a solid-state tunable spectrally pure laser source, combined with fast frequency tuning capability and frequency selective multiplex technique, the LIDAR system can support multi-frequencies for simultaneous measurements, therefore a single tunable frequency source design can replace many fixed-frequency bulky laser sources currently used for each wind farm installation, leading to a significant reduction in inventory complexity and associated cost of installation and operation. The newly developed multi-frequency LIDAR system also demonstrates a high degree of measurement accuracy comparative with existing systems.