Wind Vector Estimation by Drone

Abstract: An original approach for measuring wind speed and direction by the use ofdrones was proposed and compared to an existing one. The original approach allowed the drone to drift with the wind and use the translatory velocity for input into a non-linear estimator, while the existing approach used a stationary hovering drone and its tilt for input to an estimator. A simulation environment was set up in Simulink and Matlab and validated using outputs from previous researchers performing similar tasks. The first test exposed the two approaches to wind tunnel-like environment with a strictly horizontal wind, while the second test used real wind data collected on-board a meteorological research vessel. Results showed that the original approachperformed better for estimating both direction and speed, but it required a largearea to drift in during operation.