Sensing Wind Speed with Kites

The researchers, professor of atmospheric physics Giles Harrison and applied meteorologist Kieran Walesby, describe their device in the AIP's Review of Scientific Instruments. The instrument consists of a 2-meter-long and 1-meter-wide Rokkaku-type kite — a simple-to-construct Japanese kite design with “good stability, reasonable load-carrying capacity, and a low sink rate when the wind speed drops,” Harrison says — attached to a ground-based strain gauge that monitors the tension in the kite's tether line. That line tension, Harrison and Walesby found, is linearly related to wind speed.

“The kite method is portable and cheap, and removes the need for a mast to support an anemometer,” Harrison says. “A particular use is to provide measurements above those reached by masts” — although, he adds, “it will work less well at low levels, or in very turbulent conditions. We expect to refine the kite design to allow operation in a wider range of conditions, and to encourage wider adoption of our approach.”

The article, “A thermally stable tension meter for atmospheric soundings using kites” by K. T. Walesbya and R. G. Harrison was published online in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments on July 21, 2010. See: http://rsi.aip.org/rsinak/v81/i7/p076104_s1

Journalists may request a free PDF of this article by contacting jbardi@aip.org

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Review of Scientific Instruments, published by the American Institute of Physics, is devoted to scientific instruments, apparatus, and techniques. Its contents include original and review articles on instruments in physics, chemistry, and the life sciences; and sections on new instruments and new materials. One volume is published annually. Conference proceedings are occasionally published and supplied in addition to the Journal's scheduled monthly issues. RSI publishes information on instruments, apparatus, techniques of experimental measurement, and related mathematical analysis. Since the use of instruments is not confined to the physical sciences, the journal welcomes contributions from any of the physical and biological sciences and from related cross-disciplinary areas of science and technology. See: http://rsi.aip.org/
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