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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [grumpier.mike] [ In reply to ]
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Seems like Swiss Side are still on the plan for an aero sensor per:
https://www.swissside.com/blogs/news/we-are-hiring-embedded-system-engineer?fbclid=IwAR3HbrjpjElAdds6d3m4EOLuWk7L7-JOK1jZTu4Y_MocZVa5U_TcIGjE6Gk
Hiring a software/ programming engineer.. will we see a device in the near future?
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [s5100e] [ In reply to ]
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [marcag] [ In reply to ]
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doesn't look bad in a vacuum.

That said, still needs somebody to become fairly well versed in using it... or, more likely - especially with price considered - have someone who knows what they are doing running the tests. Which, imho doesn't solve some of the big hurdles the current sensors face in "breaking through" to mainstream.

My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com
Last edited by: Morelock: Mar 28, 21 11:11
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [Morelock] [ In reply to ]
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Morelock wrote:
doesn't look bad in a vacuum.

That said, still needs somebody to become fairly well versed in using it... or, more likely - especially with price considered - have someone who knows what they are doing running the tests. Which, imho doesn't solve some of the big hurdles the current sensors face in "breaking through" to mainstream.

Agreed.

I'm not knocking their "training material", but I do question the validity of that approach with filtering it through fitters when we've seen a statistically significant amount of folks show up on ST with photos of their fit from a local "fitter" that was less than good. Pair that with the technology/technical aspect of working with aero sensors and data and protocols and I can't see that working except for pretty slick/smart fitters who likely already do some kind of aero fitting anyway.

I still like my idea of a mobile box truck wind tunnel.
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
Morelock wrote:
doesn't look bad in a vacuum.

That said, still needs somebody to become fairly well versed in using it... or, more likely - especially with price considered - have someone who knows what they are doing running the tests. Which, imho doesn't solve some of the big hurdles the current sensors face in "breaking through" to mainstream.


Agreed.

I'm not knocking their "training material", but I do question the validity of that approach with filtering it through fitters when we've seen a statistically significant amount of folks show up on ST with photos of their fit from a local "fitter" that was less than good. Pair that with the technology/technical aspect of working with aero sensors and data and protocols and I can't see that working except for pretty slick/smart fitters who likely already do some kind of aero fitting anyway.

I still like my idea of a mobile box truck wind tunnel.

Exactly right, but I take a different perspective on the issues you both have raised. The biggest hurdle imho is education and understanding of the technology and how to use it. Even if you erase all of the perceived or actual sensor hurdles completely, 100%, then you are still left with educating people on what to do with the sensor to make you faster and to know with confidence that the changes you are making are indeed precise (lets avoid the accuracy discussion). Human error comes into this on a large scale as the quality of the results will always (yes, always) have a substantial degree of influence from the rider themselves.

Illustration of this comes from the excerpts of this recent blog post related to wind tunnel testing, which may be considered by most to be best conditions (most controlled) for doing aero assessment: https://feltbicycles.com/...lly-cycling-pro-team
Some great quotes in there:
"if you slightly move your eyes, that changes your neck, that changes your head position"
"When I am doing a run in the wind tunnel, I am not an athlete, I become a mannequin... any kind of movement that isn't necessary can throw the numbers off."

My day job is both a researcher and educator in all things related to aerodynamics. The training platform we are developing and launching is an integration of these aerodynamics concepts with bike fitting and equipment selection.

I do believe that many of the sensor hurdles are already addressed, but some do remain (we are working diligently on them as the solutions will make things easier!).

Chris Morton, PhD
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
co-Founder and inventor of AeroLab Tech
For updates see Instagram
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:


I still like my idea of a mobile box truck wind tunnel.

Been there, done that....2013


Last edited by: marcag: Mar 29, 21 7:48
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [marcag] [ In reply to ]
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marcag wrote:
burnthesheep wrote:


I still like my idea of a mobile box truck wind tunnel.


Been there, done that....2013

Haha, cool!

What became of that?

I know I've mentioned the mobile thing a few times but never has anybody posted pictures of one! That's neat, thanks!
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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I'm thinking the blockage factor would limit the precision of that. Plus, I'm guessing that conditioning the air flow would also be a problem.
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
marcag wrote:
burnthesheep wrote:


I still like my idea of a mobile box truck wind tunnel.


Been there, done that....2013


Haha, cool!

What became of that?

I know I've mentioned the mobile thing a few times but never has anybody posted pictures of one! That's neat, thanks!

I remember the owner saying he did it for fun and he poured $1M into it. It disappeared about 2 years later. I remember the data actually made sense. More sense than some of the data I payed for at other venues :-)
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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Pretty sure USA Cycling ended up with it at some point, but not sure where it's final resting place is/was.

Jim Manton / ERO Sports
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [RChung] [ In reply to ]
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I wonder why they wouldn’t make it a moving open test section, which would not be unprecedented.

I think an open section nozzle moving through still air should provide naturally low freestream turbulence intensity, and running a large truck is presumably much cheaper than powering a wind tunnel provided you have a long straight road and good force isolation.
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [codygo] [ In reply to ]
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Ooooh. Old-fashioned straddle truck. Only has to go 30 mph.
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [marcag] [ In reply to ]
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Woah, blast from the past!
I remember around 2011ish a group of us in Knoxville looked at the traveling tunnel but it never happened.. The issues as I remember it were
1- not enough of us to make it worth their time to come to the area
2- as I remember the price was "competitive" with A2 at the time, and I eventually I just went there

There is an old thread on here about it somewhere, although a quick search and I didn't find it.

My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com
Last edited by: Morelock: Mar 30, 21 3:22
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [RChung] [ In reply to ]
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Questions and comments based on your post:

-If the sensors can measure the inputs and calculations are done anyway..........why bother conditioning the air? These aero sensors being sold don't condition anything, they just measure and calculate. Does precision improve by adding the controls? How so if you're calculating?

-If good test design with these sensors in capable hands is working, does that tell us that you can try to create a cheaper tunnel with cheaper instruments? The sensors/circuitry in a mass market $500 device can't be at the same cost level as what's typically in a real wind tunnel.

I mean, if a real tunnel is using stuff like Labview and a bunch of instruments that work with that........I can see where some cost comes in! We used Labview for ultra high speed vibration analysis for secret items for customers back in my automation days. That stuff was expensive.

So, given that.......a big outdoor problem then is that it would take a LOT of effort to get yaw data. You're just going to be at the mercy of what the outdoors gives you that day. If crafty, a course could loop in a way to give a little yaw sweep but then you're at the mercy of how the wind plays while you ride that part of the course or outdoor track.

So essentially these sensors outdoors don't give you info at 5/10/15 degrees which is where a lot of good info for mere mortal riders not doing a 10mi all out TT are going to be.

Next point here these new sensors highlight for me is that I don't understand the customer's demand for ACTUAL drag or CdA measures. I feel this introduces a lot of extra complexity and cost. If you focus on incremental change and improvement, why care? If on a day you test helmets 1,2,3 and #2 wins....you keep 2. If on the other day you test 2,4,5.......and 5 wins........keep 5. If you test your old hands versus new and new wins........keep new.

Sniffing the "delta" is what matters to me.

Comments:
-When I add a "live calc" for CdA into VE data with an anemometer sending stuff to my iphone I notice why a lot of these sensors take some time to start reading well.........I feel that the sample rate of the speed sensor and accel/decel and power reading really can toss a "live" CdA measure. I can look at my VE data that I've input in a wind direction and the airspeed from my sensor and "see" the data get cleaner when I'm no longer accelerating or decelerating and the wind stays steady and there's no change in road gradient. Then as soon as there's a road or wind disturbance that messes up accel/decel calc.........the "live" data looks bad again for a bit. I feel like if my wheel speed sensor could sample as fast as the airspeed sensor it would work better if I cared about a real reading after the fact.
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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I am not sure I am reading your post correctly so forgive me if I not in line with your comments..

a) the newer devices (like Aerolab) do measure yaw
b) yaw is actually not difficult to implement on these devices.
c) on top of yaw useful being for the analysis of CDA, it is an incredibly useful measure for correcting signals from sensors.

I suspect they will be standard moving forward.

I think the "older" devices didn't implement yaw for a variety of reasons. Cost was one of them, way back when....but those constraints are gone with technology advancements
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
I feel like if my wheel speed sensor could sample as fast as the airspeed sensor it would work better if I cared about a real reading after the fact.

How do you read your wheel speed sensor ? The sensor sends in theory at 4Hz. I typically get 3 or so measures per second. However it provides time and count info that can be used to get pretty smooth but accurate speed and accelerations. If you simply take a speed from the Garmin or a wheel count every second, then yes, it varies a lot
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [marcag] [ In reply to ]
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Hi, I have noticed through some of the treads asking when the AeroLab sys would be available for US Fitters. Yes, we have formally launched in Europe but we are taking orders from US Fitters as I’m seeing a couple Fitter sensors going to the US.

If you have interest I encourage you to check out the YouTube channel which has a boat load of technical goodies. https://youtube.com/...DP9LRmT4szD3_6QaTjQg

Also, the website https://shop.aerolab.tech/ will give you some options for leasing.

Thanks for letting me flag a couple postings request.
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [AeroTechCEO] [ In reply to ]
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AeroTechCEO wrote:
Hi, I have noticed through some of the treads asking when the AeroLab sys would be available for US Fitters. Yes, we have formally launched in Europe but we are taking orders from US Fitters as I’m seeing a couple Fitter sensors going to the US.

If you have interest I encourage you to check out the YouTube channel which has a boat load of technical goodies. https://youtube.com/...DP9LRmT4szD3_6QaTjQg

Also, the website https://shop.aerolab.tech/ will give you some options for leasing.

Thanks for letting me flag a couple postings request.

Is leasing the only option? Exclusive to fitters?

Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [DrAlexHarrison] [ In reply to ]
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Lease is currently the only option, purchasing would get closer to the Garmin Velodrome system which is around $20,000 plus annual licensing for software update and I believe there is also a per test fee. Additional cost are the velodrome rental on top of your customers travel to the location.

The current lease get your full system cost covered within 6 to 10 fits.

Regarding Fitters only that is not the case. We added system features like rider approval of personal data ownership rules... the system is being used by professional team, federations and engineers with some custom features being incorporated to their needs upon request.

So, if you are coming from a research or manufacturing needs feel free to note in the purchase purchase and we can adjust the order accordingly. Plus, it’s not uncommon if you need a pro-forma invoice if you need to submit for budget or innovation funding.

In this case you can place the order with say engineering needs you can email us: info@aerolab.tech and do an off-line lease for you.
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [AeroTechCEO] [ In reply to ]
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Copy all. Thank you.

Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [DrAlexHarrison] [ In reply to ]
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I double checked and the checkout cart allow for comment for requests etc.

Here is a photo teasers for fun from Spain.





Last edited by: AeroTechCEO: Apr 5, 21 21:53
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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Another solution

I listened to this yesterday (while aerotesting). It's a very good podcast (not just this episode). They had MTM a few weeks ago.

https://endurance-innovation-podcast.simplecast.com/...hluricke-of-aerotune

I am not sure I agree with everything said, but I probably will give it a try (comparative to an aero sensor). Apparently there is a free version.

I am current using a stretch of road that goes from east to south and north to west on the way back. A nice long curve. I specifically use it to test wind direction. On such a course, apparently he does wind direction without a wind sensor. It will be interesting to compare to the device I am using which does yaw. If it can be done without a sensor and free, that would be cool.
Last edited by: marcag: Apr 9, 21 3:40
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [marcag] [ In reply to ]
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marcag wrote:
Another solution

I'll check that out. Thanks.

Down east where I work the wind around lunch time picks up. It is a very consistent direction. If I needed to it is just a matter of choosing which road to use for my VE. Given the typical wind.......I don't do this as it gives me a pretty "fair" yaw angle. A bit of yaw, but not extreme. A happy medium between perfectly still or head-on and directly from the side.

Wish I knew the gain at yaw from the 2008 Felt DA to the 2018 Trinity Pro......at yaw it just has some fun speed data so far.
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:

Down east where I work the wind around lunch time picks up. It is a very consistent direction. ...


Wish I knew the gain at yaw from the 2008 Felt DA to the 2018 Trinity Pro......at yaw it just has some fun speed data so far.


Tell me if this makes sense

This is a "loop" I do, 4km east then south, back north then west. East at about 60deg heading, south at 210, back north at 30, west at 240ish. I do this 4x for a total of 32km, about an hour, then I plot all the data for that hour.






The bars in this plot show the "time" in seconds at each direction in 10 deg buckets. 0 being North. So you see I spend a big chunk of time at 60deg (green bar) and 240deg (pink), as well as 30deg (green) and 210deg (pink) which aligns with the map above. I present it this way so I can mirror the out and backs

The lines show the apparent wind direction, -8deg at 30deg, 8deg at 210deg. I still have a bit of calibration to do but it should be close.

I can see that when travelling at 80 degrees and 260, I have little wind yaw



This chart shows the wind speeds at these same angles. Sure enough wind speed peaks at around that 80-90 deg, tailwind peaks at 260 (80+180). Speeds are in m/s.




I still have a few things to calibrate but next step is to plot some type of "instantaneous" CDA to the various yaw buckets.

Probably a convoluted way of presenting it but I was impressed by the wind's constant behavior for an hour.
Last edited by: marcag: Apr 9, 21 9:10
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Re: Aero sensors for dummies thread [marcag] [ In reply to ]
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marcag wrote:
Another solution

I listened to this yesterday (while aerotesting). It's a very good podcast (not just this episode). They had MTM a few weeks ago.

https://endurance-innovation-podcast.simplecast.com/...hluricke-of-aerotune

I listened and to me it sounds like a Chung method with some added modelling? And some regression to tease out added info like CRR. I would like to know what aero geeks/genius’s think about the method. Curious what people think..
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