Dear Colleagues,

Renewable energies, and particularly wind energy, are playing a decisive role on helping to meet the global energy demand in an eco-friendly and clean environment. Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs or FWTs) have emerged as a promising solution for countries with deep waters. However, due to their location on the deep sea they are subject to large loads and undesirable vibrations caused by large waves as well as strong winds and currents, which may reduce their energy efficiency and damage their structure (in addition to shortening their fatigue life). Hence, reducing the load impact on these marine structures is a fundamental challenge in order to increase reliability, and possibly reduce maintenance. Wind turbine control methods would be enhanced and ultimately, energy extraction could then be optimized.

In order to address these issues, the identification of computational models that can represent these unstable and strongly non-linear systems is essential. Additionally, various control aspects involved in the performance of these renewable energy systems should also be addressed in order to improve the energy extraction efficiency and reduce vibration.

This Special Issue will focus on new approaches for the modelling, simulation, and control of floating offshore wind turbines. Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to:

Modelling and identification of FOWTs;
Wind turbine and FOWT control;
FOWT control issues;
Wind and waves models for FOWTs;
FOWT vibration analysis;
Structural control of FOWTs;
Optimization of FOWT performance;
Energy efficiency of FOWTs.