The company
This project comes from a request from an engineering firm.
Engineering firm's request
To be able to measure the displacement of air in large industrial poultry houses.
There are multiple solutions on the market for measuring wind speed. There is, however, very little to measure air currents at low speed (from 20 cm/sec). These small, barely-perceptible air currents are, nevertheless, of paramount importance for the breeding of animals, especially indoors. The hens go to the warmest place and if the heat is poorly distributed, the animals pile up and end up suffocating each other. The purpose of the study is to understand how air moves to anticipate the distribution of heat.
JDC Electronic SA's work
The company has developed an ultra-sensitive vertical axis propeller. It is made by an assembly of carbon parts with a hard metal shaft and sapphire bearings. Its weight is 17g for a dimension of Ø80 x h50 mm. It is equipped with a multi-pole magnet and a rotation sensor consuming less than 2 micro-amperes, delivering a square wave signal proportional to the speed.