Vol. 2 (2012) No. 3 ISSN: 2088-5334 Development of Low Wind Speed Anemometer Tan Wee Choon 1 , Churia Prakash 1 , Lim Eng Aik 2 , Teoh Thean Hin 3 1 School of Mechatronic Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Perlis, Malaysia E-mail: tweechoon@unimap.edu.my, donnie_brasco5129@yahoo.com 2 Engineering Mathematics Institute, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Perlis, Malaysia E-mail: ealim@unimap.edu.my 3 Aircraft Maintenance Department, Politeknik Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, Shah Alam, Malaysia E-mail: tth9772@yahoo.com Abstract— Anemometer is a measuring device used to measure the wind speed of an area. Before design or installing a wind turbine, it is important to determine the average wind speed of that particular area throughout the year. But it is illogically to purchase anemometer to measure the wind velocity for a year period. The purpose of this project is to design and fabricate a small scale of anemometer which will able to give the wind velocity with an acceptable range of uncertainty. The fabrication of the anemometer is developed using design methodology and simulation to obtain the optimized design. The designed anemometer has the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 3.23 % when compared with Dwyer series 471 thermo-anemometer. Keywords— Anemometer; low wind speed; energy conversion system. I. INTRODUCTION Anemometers can be divided into two classes which measure the wind speed, and measure the wind pressure. Between wind speed and wind pressure, there is a close connection. There are several type of anemometer used to measure the wind speed, eg: cup anemometer [1-2], hot wire anemometer [3-4], thermal anemometer [5-6], sonic anemometer [7-8] and etc. When narrowed the angle to low wind speed measurement, there are few types of anemometer design is suitable to be used to obtain an accurate result. The accuracy of an anemometer is independent of the anemometer design only but also affected by other factors. The factors that can affect the accuracy of an anemometer might be the electronic component used in the system, the height of the anemometer placed while measurement is taken and also the environment conditions [9]. In Malaysia, wind energy conversion is a serious consideration. The potential for wind energy generation in Malaysia depends on the availability of the wind resource that varies with location. Understanding the site-specific nature of wind is a crucial step in planning a wind energy project. Detailed knowledge of wind on-site is needed to estimate the performance of a wind energy project. The availability of wind resource varies at different location at Perlis. It is necessary to first carry out a general assessment of the wind energy potential at Perlis climate. This step is taken before installing wind turbine to decide a proper wind turbine to be installed at the desired location in Perlis. In order to carry out general assessment to study on wind speed at Perlis, an anemometer has to be designed and fabricated to measure small scale of wind velocity with an acceptable range of uncertainty for short term usage. This project only considers measuring the wind speed of the range of 2 m/s to 6 m/s at permanent campus Ulu Pauh of University Malaysia Perlis. The design only consider of non-continuous measurement. The error occurs for the low wind speed anemometer being set in order not to exist 20% when compared with the pilot tube or available anemometer. II. MORPHOLOGICAL CHART Several morphology chart being proposed after a brain- storming session. A. Cup and recorder design Several designs of cup, shaft, bearing and encoder being consider which shown in Table I. Morphological chart for combination of parts for whole anemometer system is given in Table II. The suggested solutions in Table II are compared 39