A Compact Fault Tolerant 2-D Anemometer

A compact anemometer capable of detecting both the magnitude and the direction of the wind in 2-D is presented. The device relies on a recently formalized principle, consisting in combining the differential pressures measured across distinct diameters of a cylinder exposed to the wind to estimate the wind velocity and the incidence angle. The cylinder includes an ad hoc microfluidic structure with three sections of diametric pressure probes connected in parallel. The multisection approach has been adopted in order to increase the reliability of the device. The prototype has been fabricated with stereolithographic printing, while commercial differential pressure sensors with low power consumption are used to read the pressures. The results of detailed experiments performed in a wind tunnel in the range 4–30 m/s are reported. A maximum angular error of 6° and a speed relative error less than 5.3% have been obtained.