Development of a 2D ultrasound anemometer using HC-SR04

Abstract

Measurement of wind speed using an anemometer is very important in various fields. The most effective and efficient type of anemometer is the ultrasonic anemometer. This project describes the design and implementation of an ultrasonic anemometer, usually called ‘sonic’ anemometer, where wind speed is measured based on ultrasound sensors. The digital controller is implemented around the STM32F103C8T6 microcontroller using hardware design approach and a C++ language software with a primary objective of minimizing the noise and obtaining the most precised results. The 2D Ultrasonic Anemometer consists of four bi-directional ultrasonic transducers HC-SR04, in pairs of two which are opposite each other at a certain distance, and a display unit LCD-16x2, to display the wind speed. The advantage of ultrasonic anemometer is not having analogue signal conditioning and analogue filters, thereby reducing the possibility of having noise, low cost, and can be monitored remotely. The respective measurement paths and their direction values are selected via electronic control which is in our case an STM32. When a sensor starts, a sequence of four individual measurements in all four directions along the paths is carried out at maximum speed. The measurement directions (acoustic propagation directions) rotate clockwise, south to north, west to east, north to south and east to west. The overall digital controller is downloaded onto the STM32 development board. To test the feasibility and functionality of the system, a wind blow is needed.