This paper results from a study conducted in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in September 2002 to test the usefulness of a guide for a comprehensive approach to sexual and reproductive health ...rights and needs of refugee women. In-depth interviews with key informants from 19 organisations and two focus group discussions were carried out in the West Bank and Gaza. Three refugee camps were visited as well as five health facilities. The findings revealed that severe restrictions on mobility had reduced access to health facilities for both staff and patients in a significant way. For pregnant women, this had resulted in decreased access to antenatal and post-natal care and an increasing number of home deliveries, induced deliveries and deliveries at military checkpoints. Lack of donor interest and withdrawal of donor support were mentioned as hampering the implementation of the National Reproductive Health Guidelines, and the sustainability and quality of existing sexual and reproductive health services. Family planning had become a politically sensitive issue, and there were indications of increased gender-based violence. Lack of access to reproductive health services was the most visible aspect of the impact of the conflict on women's sexual and reproductive health. Little attention is paid to the less visible evidence that women's reproductive rights have been subordinated to the political situation.
An approach to control tethered wings for airborne wind energy is proposed. A fixed length of the lines is considered, and the aim of the control system is to obtain figure-eight crosswind ...trajectories. The proposed technique is based on the notion of the wing's "velocity angle" and, in contrast with most existing approaches, it does not require a measurement of the wind speed or of the apparent wind at the wing's location. In addition, the proposed approach features few parameters, whose effects on the system's behavior are very intuitive, hence simplifying tuning procedures. A simplified model of the steering dynamics of the wing is derived from first-principle laws, compared with experimental data and used for the control design. The control algorithm is divided into a low-level loop for the velocity angle and a high-level guidance strategy to achieve the desired flight patterns. The robustness of the inner loop is verified analytically, and the overall control system is tested experimentally on a small-scale prototype, with varying wind conditions and using different wings.
A new approach to control tethered wings for airborne wind energy is described. A fixed length of the lines is considered, and the aim of the control system is to obtain figure-eight crosswind ...trajectories. The proposed technique is based on the notion of the wing's "velocity angle" and, in contrast with most existing approaches, it does not require a measurement of the wind speed or of the effective wind at the wing's location. Moreover, the proposed approach features few parameters, whose effects on the system's behavior are very intuitive, hence simplifying tuning procedures. Experimental results are presented, obtained by extensively testing the approach with a small-scale prototype.
New results in the field of control of tethered wings for airborne wind energy systems with ground-level generators are presented. In the recent literature, a simple model for this kind of systems ...has been successfully used for control design. Such a model has been justified by measured data collected in experimental tests. Here, a similar model is derived, providing a theoretical analysis that gives an explicit link between the model equations and the physical parameters of the system. Moreover, a novel control approach to obtain figure-eight crosswind trajectories is presented. Contrary to most existing approaches, the proposed technique does not require a measurement of the wind velocity or of the apparent wind at the wing's location. The effectiveness of the approach is shown through hardware-in-the-loop tests and experimental results on a small scale prototype.
An approach to control tethered wings for airborne wind energy is proposed. A fixed length of the lines is considered, and the aim of the control system is to obtain figure-eight crosswind ...trajectories. The proposed technique is based on the notion of the wing's "velocity angle" and, in contrast with most existing approaches, it does not require a measurement of the wind speed or of the effective wind at the wing's location. Moreover, the proposed approach features few parameters, whose effects on the system's behavior are very intuitive, hence simplifying tuning procedures. A simplified model of the steering dynamics of the wing is derived from first-principle laws, compared with experimental data and used for the control design. The control algorithm is divided into a low-level loop for the velocity angle and a high-level guidance strategy to achieve the desired flight patterns. The robustness of the inner loop is verified analytically, and the overall control system is tested experimentally on a small-scale prototype, with varying wind conditions and using different wings.
PDF
