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CEAS EuroGNC 2026

Trim analysis of a three-line kite airborne wind Energy system using bifurcation analysis
Kevin Yu Undergraduate Student, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
Duc H. Nguyen Lecturer in Flight Dynamics and Control, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
Iván Castro-Fernández Tenure researcher, Department of Space Programmes, Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial, Carretera de Ajalvir Km. 4, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain.
Francisco DeLosRíos-Navarrete Department of Aerospace Engineering, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Avenida de la Universidad 30, 28911 Leganés, Madrid, Spain.
Jorge González-García PhD Student, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Avenida de la Universidad 30, 28911 Leganés, Madrid, Spain.
Mark H. Lowenberg Professor of Flight Dynamics, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
Gonzalo Sánchez-Arriaga Full Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Avenida de la Universidad 30, 28911 Leganés, Madrid, Spain.
Abstract:
Kites possess complex flying characteristics that must be understood to ensure efficient operation in airborne wind energy applications. The flight dynamics of a six-degrees-of-freedom three-line delta kite with full tether dynamics through a spring-mass model is investigated. Results reveal nonlinear behaviours that agree with prior analyses on simpler models of single-tether systems with constrained dynamics. These include the co-existence of multiple steady-state solutions at low airspeeds and a pendulum-mode instability that puts the kite in an 'automatic' figure-of-eight trajectory without any active control input. In the three-line system studied, this figure-of-eight trajectory is identified to be a stable limit cycle, which is influenced by the lateral distance between the left and right tether anchor points on the ground station. Increasing this distance stabilises the pendulum mode, which destroys the limit cycle and puts the kite in a stable trim condition. However, doing so results in excessive lateral stability, thereby reducing the manoeuvrability of the kite. This finding highlights the impact of ground station design on kite flight dynamics and underlines a trade-off between stability and manoeuvrability.
Keywords: airborne wind energy; kite; tether; nonlinear dynamics; bifurcation; renewable energy
 View PDF CEAS-GNC-2026-026 doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-026


Kevin Yu, Duc H. Nguyen, Iván Castro-Fernández, Francisco DeLosRíos-Navarrete, Jorge González-García, Mark H. Lowenberg, Gonzalo Sánchez-Arriaga: Trim analysis of a three-line kite airborne wind Energy system using bifurcation analysis. Proceedings of the 2026 CEAS EuroGNC conference. Madrid, Spain. May 2026. doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-026.
BibTeX entry (UTF-8):

@Incollection{CEAS-GNC-2026-026,
    author = {Yu, Kevin and Nguyen, Duc H. and Castro-Fernández, Iván and DeLosRíos-Navarrete, Francisco and González-García, Jorge and Lowenberg, Mark H. and Sánchez-Arriaga, Gonzalo},
    title = {Trim analysis of a three-line kite airborne wind Energy system using bifurcation analysis},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 {CEAS EuroGNC} conference},
    address = {Madrid, Spain},
    month = may,
    year = {2026},
    doi = {10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-026}
}