Data from: Revisiting wind speed measurements using actively heated fiber optics: a wind tunnel study

Near-surface wind speed is typically only measured by point observations. The Actively Heated Fiber-Optic (AHFO) technique, however, has the potential to provide high-resolution distributed observations of wind speeds, allowing for better spatial characterization of fine-scale processes. Before AHFO can be widely used, its performance needs to be tested in a range of settings. In this work, experimental results on this novel observational wind-probing technique are presented. In a controlled wind-tunnel setup we assessed both the accuracy and the precision of AHFO under a range of operational conditions (wind speed, angles of attack and temperature difference). The technique allows for wind speed characterization with a spatial resolution of 0.3-m on a 1-s time scale. The flow in the wind tunnel was varied in a controlled manner, such that the mean wind, ranged between 1 and 17 ms-1. The AHFO measurements are compared to sonic anemometer measurements.