ZMQ-Comm module for OpenFAST

OpenFAST module to enable real-time communication with the solver at runtime.

Main functionalities:

IN:

• Control(s) override, blades angles, generator torque and yaw momentum predisposition (in alternative to ROSCO)
• Wind Flow, exploiting Inflow Wind in uniform mode, it is possible to change flow experienced by the wind turbine in both magnitude and direction (per each direction) plus the VelGust variable$^*$

OUT:

• Any Fast output is available to be broadcasted

($^*$) NOTE: Because of the Uniform mode used in Inflow Wind, the wake meandering model will not model the wake accurately ( no spatial variation implicit in uniform Inflow mode). It is suggested to use another inflow for Fast.Farm at least for the current version of the model.

Dependencies

The main dependencies for both the Fortran/C side and the relevant Python interactor are:

• cJSON: C JSON interface. Used to compact messages, easing unpacking across different languages (https://github.com/DaveGamble/cJSON)
• ZMQ : engine of the message-passing communications. (apt-get install libzmq3-dev)

Python dependencies:

• plotly: used to generate interactive plots as new data is available
• zmq : used to send/receive messages from the other end of the socket (from FAST).

Usages and examples

Python Wrapper interface

Fast.Farm extension

The Farm extension provides the broadcast protocol, in which each turbine streams its current states and relevant outputs (set-up in the main .fst file of each). While possible to ovverride values also on the control-side, it is adivised to use the ROSCO supercontroller ZMQ example, as the SuperController of Farm is going to be discontinued in the upcoming version.