Design of a Wind Sensor Based on Cylinder Diametrical Pressure Differences for Boundary Layer Meteorological Observation

Wind speed and direction are important parameters in meteorological observation. Solid wind sensor has needed with small Quadcopter for boundary layer meteorological observation. In this paper the principle of a cylindrical two-dimensional wind sensor is reported by analyzing the data from wind tunnel experiments. A model is proposed to describe the distribution of the pressure difference across a diameter of a cylinder and the wind sensor is fabricated with MEMS differential pressure sensors. In wind tunnel tests in range of 1~40 m/s, the relative speed measuring errors and the direction measuring errors of the prototype are no more than ±(0.2 + 0.03 V) m/s and 5° respectively.