The technical concept underpinning SEATITAN comprises the development of a disruptive linear electric direct drive power take-off (PTO) for wave energy converters (WEC). The innovative type of PTO proposed is an Azimuthal Multitranslator Switched Reluctance Machine (AMSRM), that will be complemented by the appropriate power electronic converters and control platform to develop the power transformation from the mechanical power in the WEC to the electric power supplied into the grid.

During the project there will be the following progress in the technology readiness level (TRL) of the technology:

•  TRL3: An experimental proof of concept for the new AMSRM, the power converters and the control will be accomplished.
•  TRL4: Laboratory validation. However, a further step will be carried out to test the PTO in the lab under relevant conditions close to those in a sea location: Lab tests based on a hardware-in-the-loop scheme will recreate the real models, the sea conditions and the control strategies related to the WECs.
• TRL5: Relevant environmental conditions will be emulated including a list of physical parameters (temperature, humidity, mechanical loads…) tested sequentially or simultaneously, all the expected operational conditions will be recreated.

SEATITAN will advance in business models based on “open hardware models” where methods and work environments from open source software are translated into hardware environments. By opening the innovation process to the open source community, SEA-TITAN can profit on the technology side through comments, ideas, and further developments. Through this, firms can improve quality and applicability of their technologies. Moreover, the open source concept allows the developers to base their developments and contributions on an already existent basis of technology.