  Skysails Power GmbH is the leading manufacturer of light and efficient power
kites that harness the wind's untapped supplies at high altitudes, aiming at
profoundly altering wind energy's impact in achieving the global energy
transition. Novel, variable trim kites have been developed that allow to
modulate the aerodynamic coefficients of the airborne system, significantly
improving the overall system efficiency. The flight control of variable trim
kites is much more complex than that of previous kite generations and its
mastering is a challenge and one of the keys to a successful operation.
Numerical optimization is applied to find a set of flight trajectories in order
to maximize the energy production while satisfying several constraints on the
system operating in a wide range of conditions. This industry abstract provides
a general introduction of the trajectory optimization problem with variable
trim kites. We also briefly introduce the state-of-the-art optimization setup.
This is followed by demonstration of high-quality example results of the
optimization. Finally, we discuss the results and their applications.
