Four ANDroMeDA drones were built by 2020 during Dr. Christian Molter’s doctoral project at the Chair of Wind Energy at the University of Stuttgart, as part of the ANWIND project funded by the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Initial Situation
A drone had to be developed for wind measurements for research purposes. Multiple of such drones should be used to obtain a three dimensional information about the wind field, for example in complex terrain.

Special Challenges
The aircraft had to be able to compensate for sudden wind direction changes and wind gusts. Since the aircraft rotors will create a strong wake the measurement equipment could not be placed close to the rotors.

Custom Solution
Tilting propellers were incorporated into the design, enabling flight control through propeller adjustment rather than by moving the entire airframe. As a result, aircraft movements do not interfere with the measurements when compensating for wind gusts. Additionally, the measurement boom was frequency-tuned, and a notch filter was integrated into the flight controller to avoid oscillations of the measurement boom and to further enhance signal integrity.

Success Measurement
A comparison between conventional measurement data from a sonic anemometer mounted on a meteorological mast and data collected by the drone demonstrated excellent agreement. A patent application for the novel design has been successfully filed.