3D-conductive pathway written on leather for highly sensitive and durable electronic whisker

A leather-based e-whisker with 3D conductive pathway was assembled by writing conductive ink on leather. The sensor possessed good durability, and was sensitive enough to detect a height difference of 50 μm, making it capable of surface texture detection, spatial distribution mapping, wind mapping, etc.

Microscale Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation for Wind Mapping Over Complex Topographic Terrains

Wind mapping is of utmost importance in various wind energy and wind engineering applications. The available wind atlases usually provide wind data with low spatial resolution relative to the wind turbine height and usually neglect the effect of topographic features with relatively large or sudden changes in elevation. Two benchmark cases are studied for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model evaluation on smooth two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) hills. Thereafter, a procedure is introduced to build CFD model of a complex terrain with high terrain roughness heights (dense urban area with skyscrapers) starting from existing topography maps in order to properly extend the wind atlas data over complex terrains. CFD simulations are carried out on a 1:3000 scale model of complex topographic area using Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations along with shear stress transport (SST) k-ω turbulence model and the results are compared with the wind tunnel measurements on the same model. The study shows that CFD simulations can be successfully used in qualifying and quantifying the flow over complex topography consisting of a wide range of roughness heights, enabling to map the flow structure with very high spatial resolution.

Simulation Research about HJ-1C SAR Wind Mapping Capability

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) on aboard Chinese Huan Jing (HJ)-1C satellite has been planed to be launched in 2010. The satellite will fly in a sun-synchronous polar orbit of about 500-km altitude. SAR will operate in S band with HH polarization. Its image mode has the incidence angles 25°and 47°at the near and far sides of the swath respectively. SAR image has a spatial resolution of 20 m with a swath of 100 km. Here, the sea surface wind mapping capability of the SAR in the Chinese Coastal Region has been examined using M4S radar imaging model developed by Romeiser et al. The model is based on Bragg scattering theory in a composite surface model expansion. It accounts for contributions of the full ocean wave spectrum to the radar backscatter from ocean surface. The model reproduces absolute normalized radar cross section (NRCS) values for wide ranges of wind speeds. The model results of HJ-1C SAR have been compared with the model results of Envisat and Radarsat SAR signals. It shows that HJ-1C SAR is as good as both Envisat ASAR and Radarsat SAR at sea surface wind mapping Capability.