Three-Dimensional Wind Measurement Based on Ultrasonic Sensor Array and Multiple Signal Classification.

Bian Ma,Yun Ju,Jing Teng,Shi Liu,Rong Zhou,Huixian Zhu

doi:10.3390/s20020523

Abstract

The wind power industry continues to experience rapid growth worldwide. However, the fluctuations in wind speed and direction complicate the wind turbine control process and hinder the integration of wind power into the electrical grid. To maximize wind utilization, we propose to precisely measure the wind in a three-dimensional (3D) space, thus facilitating the process of wind turbine control. Natural wind is regarded as a 3D vector, whose direction and magnitude correspond to the wind’s direction and speed. A semi-conical ultrasonic sensor array is proposed to simultaneously measure the wind speed and direction in a 3D space. As the ultrasonic signal transmitted between the sensors is influenced by the wind and environment noise, a Multiple Signal Classification algorithm is adopted to estimate the wind information from the received signal. The estimate’s accuracy is evaluated in terms of root mean square error and mean absolute error. The robustness of the proposed method is evaluated by the type A evaluation of standard uncertainty under a varying signal-to-noise ratio. Simulation results validate the accuracy and anti-noise performance of the proposed method, whose estimated wind speed and direction errors converge to zero when the SNR is over 15 dB.

Highlights

As wind energy is considered one of the most promising renewable energies, it is widely used for electric power generation [1,2]
We propose to to measure thethe natural wind in in thethe space using anan ultrasonic sensor array inin the
We propose measure natural wind space using ultrasonic sensor array the context of fluctuations in wind speed and production

Summary

Introduction

As wind energy is considered one of the most promising renewable energies, it is widely used for electric power generation [1,2]. Due to the characteristics of randomness and fluctuation, the electricity generated by the wind will be excessive or insufficient, making it difficult to integrate into the power grid [3,4]. One possibility aiming at the redundant electricity is to abandon the fluctuating wind power [5,6]. That would come with a huge loss of electricity and a mass waste of wind resources and wind power equipment. A solution for overcoming the deficiency of wind power generation is to store the wind energy. Hybrid wind/compressed air energy storage (CAES) systems are used to transform the intermittent wind resources into a constantly available power supply in Germany, the USA, and even remote Arctic areas [8]. Accurate wind measurement in a 3D space can provide data that can be used to control wind

Methods

Results

Conclusion