Estimating gradient direction of atmospheric pressure using pressure sensor array

Author

Kawauchi, Kensaku and Rekimoto, Jun

Abstract

Weather has considerable influence on human behavior and activities. Weather-related disasters, in particular, can have a significant impact on societal functions, and the challenges they present need to be addressed. Weather forecasts help in minimizing the damage caused by a disaster by enabling us to make disaster management preparations beforehand. However, a disaster that occurs suddenly in a localized area is difficult to predict because existing forecasting systems are designed to make forecasts for a wide area. Therefore, a forecast system that can detect a sudden disaster in a small region is required. Pressure distribution measurements include information that is useful for forecasting the weather. Therefore, estimating the pressure distribution accurately is of considerable importance in increasing the accuracy of forecasting. One approach to estimating the pressure distribution involves using the gradient of pressure in a particular location. In this paper, we propose a system to estimate the pressure gradient using a pressure sensor array to enable the estimation of pressure distribution. The pressure difference measured by sensors is used to calculate the pressure gradient. For the evaluation of the proposed system, we built a prototype device consisting of 25 pressure sensors, and tested it in a wind tunnel and outdoors. The tests demonstrated the possibility of estimating the direction of the pressure gradient using our prototype device.