Release Note

This release includes the rigid lifting line vortex model, as described-and-used in the paper "A rigidly-convected, lifting-line vortex model in the optimal control of airborne wind energy system" (full citation information - to be added).

Key Features

• a rigidly-convected lifting line vortex model implementation that has been verified against LES results in rotationally-steady and dynamic-inflow conditions.
• plotting functions useful for indicating the flow (total and induced) on various cross-sections, including on the kite-mean-plane, as well as on virtual-wind-tunnel cross-sections, and
• a set of example files to demonstrate how to solve AWE OCPs in the awebox with this vortex model and how to run the verification tests.

Release Note

We are excited to announce the first stable release of AWEbox! AWEbox is a Python toolbox for modeling and optimal control of single- and multi-kite airborne wind energy systems. Our tool provides researchers and developers with a modular, extensible, and user-friendly framework for trajectory optimization and model predictive control of rigid-wing, lift- and drag-mode kite systems.

Key Features

• generating optimization-friendly high-fidelity system dynamics for different modeling options.
• formulating and solving the trajectory optimization problem efficiently and reliably
• tailored formulations especially for efficient optimization over long time horizons
• postprocessing and visualizing the solution and performing quality checks
• tracking MPC design and solver generation for closed-loop simulations

Implemented aircraft models

• Ampyx AP2 (6DOF)
• MegAWES (6DOF)
• point-mass model with lift and roll control (3DOF)

Acknowledgements

AWEbox has been developed under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Moritz Diehl (University of Freiburg, Germany) and has received financial support from the company Kiteswarms GmbH as well as from the EU Horizon 2020 programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 642682 (AWESCO) and by the German DFG via Grant No 525018088 (MAWERO).

Citation

We invite users to explore, contribute, and cite AWEbox in related research and development efforts.

De Schutter, J.; Leuthold, R.; Bronnenmeyer, T.; Malz, E.; Gros, S.; Diehl, M. AWEbox: An Optimal Control Framework for Single- and Multi-Aircraft Airborne Wind Energy Systems. Energies 2023, 16, 1900. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16041900

see also:

Harzer, J,; De Schutter, J.; Diehl, M. Numerical Trajectory Optimization of Airborne Wind Energy Systems With Stroboscopic Averaging Methods, IEEE Control Systems Letters 2025 (9), pp. 703-708. https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3577225

@jdeschut @rcleuthold @JakobHarz @thilobro @tfhaas