I am on a team building an autonomous sailboat for a competition next summer. We need a reliable but affordable ultra-sonic anemometer (wind sensor). Needs to be 2-axis and we have about a 300-400 dollar budget for it.

Any advice or direction to a place that might know more about the specifications we need would be very helpful. We are a fairly new team and would appreciate advice.

Thank you,
-Jordan

Check out Airmar. I belive they make an ultra sonic wind sensor. Ryan

http://www.quasarelectronics.co.uk/k...c-kit/3168.pdf

Seems a shame to re-invent the wheel, but improvements are always possible and often welcome.

Originally Posted by joeblinky

I am on a team building an autonomous sailboat for a competition next summer. We need a reliable but affordable ultra-sonic anemometer (wind sensor). Needs to be 2-axis and we have about a 300-400 dollar budget for it.

Any advice or direction to a place that might know more about the specifications we need would be very helpful. We are a fairly new team and would appreciate advice.

Thank you,
-Jordan

Is this a full size boat or a model?

Sorry, somehow I didn't catch that there were responses.

@Rssailor I am looking at Airmar, a lot of their website appears to be down but the things I did find look way out of our budget and I am guessing they are for full size boats? I should have clarified that our boat will be about 2m in length.

@mfr02 The quasar project looks really cool but it appears to only look at wind speed. We are using this to steer a sail boat and need a rather reliable wind vein. Again sorry I used the term wind sensor but maybe should have said wind vane. It looks like if trying to find wind direction it is either wind vanes or ultrasonic anemometers that cost way too much for our project.

@mrpenguin It is a model boat that is about 2m in length.

Thanks for your replies, sorry I didn't notice them until now!

@joeblinky:

You may be better served to consider a wind vane instead. Have a Google for vane sailing - there are lots of examples about including video of vane sailboats in action.

Presuming that you may be using electronics (the vane boats are usually all mechanical) perhaps you can put a vane on a potentiometer and use it like a joystick to control a rudder servo.

Two metres is a BIG model - if you are planning to control the sails as well as the steering you may need a SERIOUS winch (see RMG winches) - depends on the budget you are working with.....

For a boat that size, rudder alone may not steer it reliably unless you have less than scale size sails in light conditions...