Flying UltraSonic - a new way to measure the wind

Abstract

Measurements of flow conditions with tall meteorological measurement masts at complex sites are expensive and can only be carried out with great effort. Concepts and new measuring methods are needed to assess these sites. This work aims to validate the performance of a measuring system based on UAV in complex terrain using on-site measurement. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), more precisely a helicopter, was equipped with a standard 3-D ultrasonic anemometer. This UAV was positioned closed to a meteorological measuring mast and remained stationary at a constant altitude to measure the wind speed components. The data of the UAV were compared with a sensor installed on the measurement mast. The measurements shows a good agreement with an absolute deviation of 0.004 m/s and a relative deviation of 0.047 % for the horizontal wind speed. In the frequency domain the PSDs of the wind components u, v, w match the theoretical spectrum f^(-5/3) for the inertial subrange very well. With further improvements, this UAV equipped with a 3-D ultrasonic anemometer could be a very effective measurement tool for atmospheric research.