Design and implementation of opto-isolator based low cost digital anemometer with wind direction monitoring system

Ascertainment of wind speed and direction is significant facet for weather forecasting and air navigation in army and other aspects of science. In this paper, a microcontroller based portable wind speed measurement and wind direction monitoring system has been designed as well as developed. An opto-isolator is used to convert the mechanical signal into electrical pulses into microcontroller in cup anemometer. Microcontroller determines the duration of each input pulse of opto-isolator and produces resultant pulses to display the wind velocity in particular unit according to program installed into the microcontroller. Moreover, a variable resistor is equipped circularly just beneath of the wind tracks detector which is simply lightweight metal shit is arrow in sign. Microcontroller also determines the value of voltage drops inside the variable resistor and sense exact direction by taking one horizon as base in precision of single degree. In addition LCD display board is used to visualize the real time wind speed and direction actively.