Quadruple sensitivity improvement for wind speed sensor using dual-layer bended inductors

Abstract In this paper, a novel wind speed sensor with dual layer inductors is proposed to realize improved sensitivity for the first time. Two inductors with same structure are fabricated on front and back surface of the flexible substrate. When the wind blows towards the substrate, the two inductors on both sides bend because of wind pressure. Consequently, the total inductance variation, as a measure for the wind speed, can be increased effectively because of mutual inductance effect. The proposed anemometer is fabricated on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. Wind speed experiments are performed in the special wind tunnel and the LCR meter is applied to record the inductance variation. It demonstrates that, compared to single-layer inductors, the dual-layer design can achieve a quadruple sensitivity for the wind speed up to 11.2m/s. The reason is that the mutual inductance contributes to the total variation equally as the two self inductance.