System and method for sensing wind flow passing over complex terrain

A wind flow sensing method for determining velocity fields of a wind flow at a set of different altitudes from a set of measurements of radial velocities at each of the altitudes, wherein the method uses a processor coupled with stored instructions implementing the method, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor carry out steps of the method, comprising:

• accepting the set of measurements of radial velocities at line-of-site points for each of the altitudes;
• determining a first approximation of the velocity field at each of the altitudes by simulating computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of the wind flow with operating parameters reducing a cost function of a weighted combination of errors, each error corresponds to one of the altitudes and includes a difference between measured velocities at the line-of-site points at the corresponding altitude and simulated velocities at the line-of-site points simulated by the CFD for the corresponding altitude with current values of the operating parameters, wherein the errors include a first error corresponding to a first altitude and a second error corresponding to a second altitude, wherein a weight for the first error in the weighted combination of errors is different from a weight of the second error in the weighted combination of errors;
• determining a horizontal derivative of vertical velocity at each of the altitudes from the first approximation of the velocity fields;
• determining a second approximation of the velocity fields using geometric relationships between a velocity field for each of the altitudes, projections of the measurements of radial velocities on the three-dimensional axes, and the horizontal derivative of vertical velocity for the corresponding velocity field;
• and
• rendering the second approximation of velocity fields of the wind flow.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium embodied thereon a program executable by a processor for performing a method for determining velocity fields of a wind flow at a set of different altitudes from a set of measurements of radial velocities at each of the altitudes, the method comprising:

• accepting the set of measurements of radial velocities at line-of-site points for each of the altitudes;
• determining a first approximation of the velocity field at each of the altitudes by simulating computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of the wind flow with operating parameters reducing a cost function of a weighted combination of errors, each error corresponds to one of the altitudes and includes a difference between measured velocities at the line-of-site points at the corresponding altitude and simulated velocities at the line-of-site points simulated by the CFD for the corresponding altitude with current values of the operating parameters, wherein the errors include a first error corresponding to a first altitude and a second error corresponding to a second altitude, wherein a weight for the first error in the weighted combination of errors is different from a weight of the second error in the weighted combination of errors;
• determining a horizontal derivative of vertical velocity at each of the altitudes from the first approximation of the velocity fields;
• determining a second approximation of the velocity fields using geometric relationships between a velocity field for each of the altitudes, projections of the measurements of radial velocities on the three-dimensional axes, and the horizontal derivative of vertical velocity for the corresponding velocity field;
• and
• rendering the second approximation of velocity fields of the wind flow.