From inception to commercialization: A systematic review of airborne wind energy systems

Despite its potential to expand renewable energy capacity, wind power currently supplies only 7% of global demand. Airborne Wind Energy Systems (AWES) offer a promising path forward but face barriers in stability during extreme conditions, high wind speeds, and farm-scale coordination. This study presents a systematic review of AWES from 2014 to 2024, classifying developments across system design, control, power generation, energy transfer, economics, and life-cycle assessment. Multi-aircraft AWES (MAWES) offer transformative scalability yet remain underexplored relative to single-unit systems. Recent progress in wake management and synchronized control is notable, but challenges in flight-path optimization persist, affecting commercial viability. Control strategies have progressed from classical PID to Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) and Moving Horizon Estimation (MHE). MAWES deployed via AWEbox reduces computational cost by 40%. Several theoretical commercial designs now target up to 10 MW capacity. Life-cycle studies show MAWES can cut material use by 30%–50% and carbon emissions by 20%–55% compared to traditional turbines. Despite these advances, MAWES remain at early deployment stages due to unresolved integration and performance issues. This review highlights the need for targeted research into dynamic stability, coordinated control, and system impedance under extreme weather, particularly at wind speeds exceeding 12 m/s, to enable scalable, low-footprint airborne wind farms.