A fully autonomous drone for lower cost wind measurements for the development of wind parks

Short summary Today, wind profiles are usually measured with cup wind probes on tall (200 m) towers or with expensive LIDAR systems. A lower cost, effective alternative method using a functional model drone with mounted sensors, has been developed and demonstrated by a Swiss university of applied sciences. As a next step a reliable prototype (consisting of the drone, sensors, power supply, etc.) that meets all necessary requirements should be built by way of a commercial agreement with technical assistance.

Full description The main drawback of wind profile measurements using measuring towers or LIDARs (light detection and ranging or laser imaging, detection, and ranging) is the high cost (>100’000 EUR), inflexible installation and difficult commissioning. To build such high towers a building permission is necessary. Often the measurement tower position is not the same as the installation site of the wind turbine. Due to the above complicated conversions of the measured values become necessary as a result and become uncertain. Therefore, alternatives using sensors mounted on a drone were explored and extensively studied. The theoretical and practical work done at the Swiss University of Applied Sciences and Arts shows that wind speed measurement using drones is feasible. The feasibility demonstrator consists of a commercially available drone integrated with sensors and power supply units which enable autonomous operation. The demonstrator developed for this purpose is flexible and inexpensive. The installation of the system is very fast and uncomplicated. There are hardly any restrictions regarding the choice of location of the station of the drone, especially if the measuring location corresponds to the legal conditions of a location of a wind turbine. Thus, all conversions of the measured data to a slightly changed location are omitted. The measurement drone can also be used by ships or rafts. The drone is able to launch and to land fully automatically. It is always tethered with the ground station for safety reasons. The energy for the drone comes from a battery which is loaded on ground through a non-contact system. All measured data -flight data and wind speeds- are transferred to the ground station and from there into the control center. As a next step towards product development, a working prototype that incorporates the drone, appropriate measurement sensors, power supply and tethering (if applicable) should be designed. Especially, requirements regarding availability, reliability are important since the system should be able to operate for a few thousand hours for collecting data. For those reasons a commercial agreement with technical assistance is envisaged with partners active in drone technology, business applications with drones and/or wind energy engineering, wind consulting.

Advantages and innovations - Easy to use and very flexible wind measurement system in relation to measurement location. There are hardly any restrictions regarding the choice of location of the station of the drone. Thus, all conversions of the measured data to a slightly changed location are omitted. - More cost effective/cheaper and more energy efficient: LIDAR Wind speeds measurements don’t have the same spatial resolution, are very expensive and need a huge amount of energy. - Reliable and reproducible method in all conditions and places: not affected by altered environmental conditions.
Contact / source: NEXT EEN Widgets (europa.eu)