Workshop on Lidar-Assisted Control (LAC) – Path to Certification & Industry Adoption
Motivation: Even after more than a decade of research and testing of lidar assisted control, the technology still has not found its way to industrialization. While there is no doubt about the effectiveness of the lidar assisted control to reduce the fatigue and extreme loading on the main components, there are disagreement about the relevance of the load reduction for the lifetime of the entire turbine.
Despite this, the quantifiable value of lidar-based control is unknown for the OEM and operators in terms of certifiability, long-term reliability and performance behaviour under different site conditions. This one-day workshop brings together key stakeholders—wind turbine OEMs, wind farm operators, lidar manufacturers, and certification bodies and WindForS research cluster —to collaboratively address these barriers.
We plan a combination of expert presentation on the current state of the art, in term of software and hardware for lidar assisted control, open discussions to identify the key barriers, working in groups to formulate a path to industrialization through potential collaboration between the participants.
Our goals are:
✔ Define a long-term testing strategy at the WINSENT test site with its two research wind turbines (type of hardware, control strategy etc. testing period etc.)
✔Standardize wind field reconstruction using lidar measurement & verification procedures for all type of lidars
✔ Define a potential certification pathway for industrialization & cost-effective deployment of lidar assisted control
✔ Strengthen collaboration between industry, academia and identify key focus of the collaboration with the largest impact for the industry
By aligning technical advancements with clear certification pathways, this workshop will accelerate the commercialization of LAC technology—making wind energy systems more reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable.
🚀 Together, we plan to turn the research of lidar research into reality and enable smart wind turbine control in an energy system that requires the wind turbine to fulfill many different objectives at the same time (noise reduction, power performance, flexibility support, market aware operation, sustainable use of materials etc.)
Workshop Objectives:
• Address certification challenges for LAC-enabled wind turbines
• Facilitate collaboration between OEMs, wind farm operators, certification bodies and research
• Long-term testing of LAC performance in a real-world test environment at the WINSENT test site (focused on power performance and fatigue load reduction)
• Establish an actionable research plan for extreme load mitigation using lidar
Preliminary Workshop Program:
09:30 – 09:45 | Welcome & Workshop Overview
- Introduction to LAC technology and its potential
- Goals & structure of the workshop
09:45 – 10:30 | Lidar assisted control from the research perspective
Presenters: ZSW, University of Stuttgart, Hochschule Flensburg, sowento
- WINSENT test site, the ideal test site for long-term testing of lidar assisted control
- Current research in lidar assisted control
- Current research in scanning lidar development
- Challenges for the industrialization
10:30 – 11:00 | Coffee Break & Networking
11:00 – 12:00 | Lidar assisted control from the industry perspective
Presenters: Vaisala, ZX, DNV, TÃœV, SGRE
- current lidar hardware for lidar assisted control
- technical requirement for certification purpose
-Procedure for certification purpose
12:00 – 13:00 | Lunch & Informal Discussions
13:00 – 14:00 | Working Groups: Defining Certification & Standardization Framework
Participants split into three working groups to tackle key LAC industrialization challenges:
1. Minimum certification requirements for LAC-enabled turbines
2. Research and testing extreme wind load mitigation using lidar
3. Design of a long-term LAC testing campaign at WINSENT to overcome certification hurdles
Outcome: Draft recommended joint research actions for LAC industrialization
14:00 – 14:30 | Coffee Break
14:30 – 15:15 | Collaborative research: Path Forward for LAC Adoption
- Presentation of working group outcomes
- How to integrate LAC research into commercial wind turbine design and operation
- Creating working groups to define concrete research tasks relevant to the industry with the view for potential projects
15:15 – 16:00 | Closing Panel: Next Steps & Commitments
- Key takeaways & commitments from stakeholders
- Follow up for research & collaboration opportunities (timeline, responsible persons, follow up with online meetings) identify potential funding
- Summary of the workshop
Expected Outcomes:
✅ Certification path for LAC-enabled turbines
✅ State of the art on lidar assisted control and value
✅ Industry collaboration with concrete follow up plan
✅ Long-term testing initiative at WINSENT and other test sites
