Precise Wireless Triggering System for Anemometers with Long-Baseline Acoustic Probes

A wireless triggering system for acoustic anemometers using an acoustic probe with a long baseline is investigated. Acoustic probes for measuring micrometeorologic parameters, such as temperature and wind velocity, are used as noncontact and nondestructive methods. The acoustic probe with a long baseline was previously proposed by the authors and investigated to form a sensing grid system for micrometeorologic measurement. The authors have also partially investigated a wireless sensing grid using a wireless local-area network (LAN). However, because of the synchronization problem between sensor nodes, the trigger line has been left wired. In this paper, the problem of synchronization is solved by investigating a wireless triggering system using frequency modulated (FM) radio waves. The primitive triggering system of FM radio waves has some instability on time synchronization depending on such the communication environment as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To overcome the influence of the instability, a cross-correlation method is adopted to the triggering system. As a result, the time synchronization errors of the trigger system were reduced by up to one tenth. In addition, not only the instability problem but also other larger errors are compensated by the proposed system in an experimental wind velocity measurement.