Vaisala WINDCAP® Technology

Vaisala WINDCAP® Ultrasonic Wind Sensor uses ultrasound to determine wind speed and direction. The sensor has no moving parts, which makes it independent of the limitations of mechanical wind sensors such as friction, inertia, time constant, over-speeding, and starting threshold.

How it works

WINDCAP® sensor features an array of three ultrasonic transducers oriented to form an equilateral triangle. Wind measurement is based on time of flight (TOF) of the sonic impulse - the time it takes for the signal to travel from one transducer to another. TOF is measured in both directions for each pair of transducer heads. Simple algebra allows solving for the parallel component of wind velocity independently of the static speed of sound.

The equilateral triangle configuration of the three transducers provides three possible sets of basis vectors. The combinations yield bi-directional measurements on the paths labeled A, B and C. These measurements are used to determine the wind velocity components parallel to each of the three paths.