WeatherPi

Abstract

The WeatherPi is a Raspberry Pi, credit card sized computer, hooked up with a sense HAT which itself is a compilation of various sensors with programming to automatically read them, interpret them into meaningful information and finally upload the data directly to internet. This project aims to facilitate access to localised meteorological surveillance for the masses. The WeatherPi will be able to measure temperature, relative humidity, and air pressure. The list of deliverables would include a working prototype and GUI website dashboard displaying relevant graphs , readings and data on smartphone or any mobile device.

Internet of Things (IOT)

• The Internet of things is the network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and connectivity which enables these objects to connect and exchange data
• Internet of Things is actually connecting anything to internet.
• IOT has the potential to impact the personal life and the professional life.
• One of the great platforms to learn IOT is Raspberry Pi.

Materials

• Raspberry Pi 3 Model-B.
• Sense HAT.
• 5V, 2.5A micro USB Power supply with noise filter.
• Smart phone device or Laptop.
• HDMI cable.
• 32gb Micro SD card

Why WeatherPi?

• Air Pollution is a major environmental and health problem affecting millions of people in developed and developing countries alike.
• Governments provide vague and unlocalised data about the air surrounding us.
• With WeatherPi, you can take matters into your hands and monitor the quality of environment around you.
• WeatherPi can be an invaluable resource for the people living in an area that is neglected by governmental weather reporting.
• Due to its ability to automatically upload data to the internet, once correctly placed WeatherPi can provide easily-accessible weather data for the whole community.
• It can give us every minute update automatically which is updated on the weather underground channel on personal weather station.

Sense HAT

The Raspberry Pi Sense HAT is attached on top of the Raspberry Pi via the 40 GPIO pins . The Sense HAT has several integrated circuit based sensors can be used for many different types of experiments, applications, and even games. The sensors enable you to read: Orientation (yaw, pitch & roll) via an accelerometer, 3D gyroscope and magnetometer; Pressure; Humidity;Temperature

Technical Specification:

• Official Sense HAT from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
• 8x8 LED matrix display.
• Accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer.
• Air pressure sensor.
• Temperature and humidity sensor.
• Small 5 button joystick.

Step 3: Creating personal weather station network.

Understanding the python code:

The project folder contains various files. Here we will understand them one by one.

(1) config.py - This is the project's external service configuration file. It provides the weather station the details about weather underground weather station profile that is Station ID and Station key.

(2) readme.md - This set of file contains the instructions about the python code.

(3) start-station.sh - This file contains the shell script to start the weather station process.

(4) weather-station.py - This file contains the main data collection application for the project. We finally run this application to read the data from the sense HAT and upload them directly to the weather underground channel.

Since the Sense HAT has LED display, it is used to display information about the weather data. The sense HAT shows red arrow, blue arrow and an equal sign. Here's what it means:

• Red Arrow - When temperature increases above the previous reading.
• Blue Arrow - When temperature decreases below the previous reading.
• Equal Sign - When the temperature remains same as the prior reading.

Testing the application:

To execute the data collection application, open the terminal window and navigate to the folder where you copied the project files.

$ python ./weather_station.py

And the application works perfectly fine.

Automatic Startup:

Here a few changes have been made. Initially when we used to upload the data we needed to open the terminal and then execute the application. The changes done makes the raspberry pi to upload the data automatically to the weather underground channel without the need of execution done in the terminal window.

$ chmod +x start-station.sh

Next, we need to open the pi user's session autostart file using the following command:

$ sudo nano ~/. config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

Next, we add the following line at the bottom of the file

@lxterminal -e /home/pi/pi_weather/start_station.sh

Now, we save the changes made and then reboot the raspberry pi.

(2) Results from the 29th April:

Future Scope:

• The future scope for the project can be running several trial algorithms in order to compensate for the the temperature reading with the CPU temperature in order to obtain the precise temperature reading.
• The WeatherPi can also be transformed into more advanced weather station. Sensors such as TGS 2600 (for general air quality), MICS 2710 (for Nitrogen dioxide concentration) and MICS 5520 (for Carbon monoxide concentration) can be attached and certain python codes needs to be run to get the data from these sensors, this can help to get readings not only about the temperature, humidity and pressure but also about the general air quality, NO2 concentration and CO concentration.

Conclusion:

• The main motive of the project was learning. Learning about the Internet of Things. I have learnt about the basics of Python programming and using Raspberry Pi for several applications.
• The goal was achieved. The weather station works perfectly fine. It uploads the data collected from the sense HAT to the weather underground channel for every 3 minutes.
• It turns out that temperature readings are not accurate due to reason being thermal conduction from Pi's CPU to the humidity and pressure sensors attached on the sense HAT.