Ultrasonic Anemometer Monitoring and Logging Application

• Windows desktop application reading an ultrasonic anemometer over a serial connection at one-second intervals
• Built for on-site staff to check current wind speed and direction at a glance, and to look back over a chosen period
• Reading, on-screen display, alarm decision, display-board output and record keeping handled in one application
• Runs standalone on a single on-site PC, with no server or network connection

• Wind speed, direction, alarm and peak each shown as a large numeric panel → readable from across the room
• Font size, color and weight configurable per item → adjustable to the installation spot and lighting
• Live readings and the ten-second average drawn on one chart → momentary gusts and overall trend side by side
• Recent readings also listed in a table, holding up to 100 rows
• Alarm raised above the wind speed threshold and held for two hours after the last exceedance → no flicker off when the wind briefly drops

Flow of work

• Anemometer → serial port input → on-screen display and alarm decision → display-board output, with every reading recorded at the same time
• Separate ports for the anemometer input and the display-board output, each with port, baud rate, data bits, parity and stop bits set from the screen
• Receive-only operation continues when no output port is set or the connection fails → a display-board problem does not stop collection

Data exchanged

• Standard measurement sentences from the device parsed as sent, and re-emitted to the display board in the same form

$WIMWV,357.0,R,5.2,M,A*CS
$WIMTA,-25.0,C*CS

• Direction is an angle, so a plain average does not hold → ten-second average computed treating 0 and 360 degrees as the same bearing
• Frequent refresh unnecessary on a display board → output limited to once every ten seconds, choosing live values or the ten-second average
• Device fault values (error codes, invalid status flag) distinguished from a dropped connection → reason reported and collection stopped
• Chart window adjustable up to three hours, with the horizontal axis labelled in minutes ago rather than clock time
• Readings retained for three years, with older records cleared automatically at startup
• Missing or malformed record file rebuilt at startup to keep the application running
• Communication and display settings saved on exit, then checked for type and range before being applied on the next run

• Current wind speed and direction, the ten-second average and the peak all visible on one screen
• Alarm state persisting past the exceedance itself → a usable indicator for work decisions
• Same values pushed to the on-site display board, reaching people who are not at the application screen
• Every reading kept, so any period can be exported to an Excel file for reporting and analysis
• Communication and display settings changeable on screen, accommodating equipment swaps and relocation