Martian landers have been able capture measurements of wind speeds — some gauging the cooling rate of heated materials when winds blow over them, others using cameras to image ‘tell-tales’ that blow in the wind — but there’s still room for improvement. Researchers now demonstrate a novel sonic anemometric system featuring a pair of narrow-band piezoelectric transducers to measure the travel time of sound pulses through Martian air. The study accounted for variables including transducer diffraction effects and wind direction.
