Thrust control for wind turbines using active sensing of wind turbulence

A wind turbine comprising:

• a rotor with a plurality of blades;
• a pitch system configured with the blades to rotate the blades around longitudinal axes of the blades;
• an active sensing system mounted on the wind turbine, the active sensing system comprising a Doppler lidar system that generates measurement beams upwind of the wind turbine to detect wind speed of an incoming wind flow;
• a control system in communication with the Doppler lidar system and configured to:
• substantially continuously measure the wind speed of the incoming wind flow and calculate a turbulence parameter corresponding to wind speed variations from the measured wind speeds;
• select a thrust level based on the turbulence parameter and the measured wind speed, wherein the thrust level is selected from a plurality of thrust limits for different turbulence ranges, the plurality of thrust limits determined by quantile-based regression of a wind speed distribution of wind speed and the turbulence parameter;
• and
• send signals to the pitch system to collectively pitch the blades such that aerodynamic thrust on the rotor is below the selected thrust level.