Windvane and Anemometer

Hi, i have a student doing a project on a yaw controlled wind turbine(its part of Distributed Energy System). For that purpose i and he were looking at the options we have for measuring wind speed and direction. Googling for both has turned up commercially use devices(not much use since too expensive) so i was out searching for some way to make one. There are three options that i have concluded that i can give them and help them out:

1. Build the 4 ultrasonic sensor wind direction and speed meter from EPEs weather station published in August 2003.

2. Buy the anemometer sensor from

**broken link removed**

and make a wind vane using a disk with holes in the middle with IR transmitters on one side and receivers on the other like they did in silicon chip magazine.

3. Follow the 3 ultrasonic sensor model described here to build a wind direction and speed meter.

The thing i am confused in is that i dont want them to get entangled in a task that takes them away from their major project. Personally, i am in favour of the first choice.

I wanted your views on that.

An old favourite cheap anemometer can be made using e.g. 2 ping-pong ball halves as cups at the ends of an arm which rotates the shaft of a DC model motor. Output voltage is roughly proportional to wind speed. The traditional calibration method involves mounting it on a car driven at known speed.

Oh thanks alec, I think we'll go with this one, cheap and easy to make. Thanks.