Experimental Setup to Study Airborne Wind Energy Generation Using a Train of Kites Hiroki T. Endo1−4, Kazuo Arakawa2, Gonzalo Sánchez-Arriaga3, Hironori A.Fujii4, Hiroshi Okubo5, Yasutake Takahashi6 1Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Science, Kyushu University 2Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University 3Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering Department, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid 4TMIT - Tokyo Metropolitan University 5Department of Mechanical Engineering Kanagawa Institute of Technology 6 Hiroki T. Endo Department of Human and Artificial Intelligent Systems, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Fukui PhD Researcher We present an experimental study of airborne wind en- 3 Kyushu University ergy generation with a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) Interdisciplinary Graduate School of lifted by a kite train to higher altitude. The Darrieus type 2 Engineering Science turbine has a diameter of 0.6 m, width of 0.6 m, mass of 2 3 kg and is made of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) 6-1 Kasugakoen, Kasuga hybrid material. The rotor is mechanically connected to a Fukuoka, 816-8580 generator on the ground. Important state variables of the 5 1. Generator monitoring module Japan system - such as altitude, wind velocity and tether state - 2. Flight condition monitoring module are monitored by a module attached to one of the kites of 3. Kites [email protected] the train. 4. Coreless generator www.tj.kyushu-u.ac.jp/en 4 5. CFRP vertical Darrieus wind turbine The full experimental setup has been implemented in 1 a low-cost manner. Internet of Things devices, home- made frameworks, and adapters manufactured with a 3D Experimental wind energy conversion with lifted wind turbine. printer have been used in the experiment. The first exper- imental campaign provided valuable scientific and tech- nical information. We successfully collected study data References: including generated electrical power, wind speed, angle [1] Hiroki Endo: "Experimental Study of Tether-Sprocket Type Air- of attack of the kites, altitude and static pressure. The borne Wind Power". The 2016 Asia-Pacific International Symposium pressure gauge requires calibration before each test and on Aerospace Technology, SBM000366 (2016) we plan to measure the tether tension. [2] Hiroki Endo, Takashi Umeno: "Study on the Influence of Tem- perature of Extruder Head on the Strength of the FDM 3D Print- The next goal is to improve the durability of the test setup ing Model". Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics 29(4), Rb29-4- and to increase the measurement data volume. Future 8371(2017). goals are scaling up of the experiment and implementing automatic take-off and landing (ATOL) by lifting drones. 154.