Energy-autonomous wind speed smart sensor

Abstract

This article presents an energy-autonomous smart sensor targeting wind speed measurements for distributed energy generation. The sensor uses a combination of a micro-turbine coupled to a small-power DC generator, to convert wind speed into a voltage to be measured. Concurrently to measuring wind speed, the smart sensor harvests energy from the wind to power a 2.4 GHz transceiver, being able to send the wind speed information to a computer several meters away. The solution is able to properly work from wind speeds as low as 3.5 m/s, a typical lower limit for small and medium size commercial turbines. The low-cost smart sensor can be configured in a wireless network, so that several nodes can be deployed over buildings, traffic lights, trees, etc. We present the setup used to characterize the sensor, along with the experimental data collected, such as the relation between wind speed and output voltage or output power for different load conditions.