Ultrasonic wind vanes

[dgadee]

These ultrasonic wind vanes seem to be falling in price. No moving parts! Nothing to break? How do they work?

 

[DangerousPirate]

I am not sure how well they work compared to a mechanical one, but you have 4 poles, 2 X and 2 Y. They send signals to their sister poles and measure the time it takes to receive the pulse. Wind interferes with that, so the longer it takes between sending and receiving a pulse, they stronger is the wind.

And by measuring both axes, they can also determine the wind direction.

 

[dgadee]

This has info on sensitivity:

Calypso Instruments Ultrasonic NMEA 2000 wind meter, plug and play wind