Mobile Embedded System for Advanced Weather ...

Proc. of Int. Conf. on Advances in Information Technology and Mobile Communication

Mobile Embedded System for Advanced Weather Forecasting in Rural Area Soujanya Chatterjee1, Anirban Datta1, Soumyajyoti Banerjee1, Ashish Singhi2, Vivek Kr. Mishra2 and Prasun Ghosal1 2

1 Department of IT, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, India Department of ECE, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, India Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract— City wise weather office is used for generating daily weather reports in present days. They study and report weather conditions from satellite images. But in reality, condition of weather keeps changing continuously, and, it takes time for these satellites to report the instant changes of weather. Thereby, most recent updates cannot be tracked by this technique. In this paper a novel technique has been proposed to make an analogous system that can be placed in a centre point of a village or any urban area or even within a car or a house. The proposed design can be implemented in the form of an integrated chip that can be attached to any mobile device e.g. a car. It will be able to calculate the condition of the weather of the surroundings where it is placed, and report it to the registered mobile and inform the weather forecast using GSM module. Also the device is able to send result to a central server that can help to make a detailed database that will help to predict the weather condition correctly with forecast. So, the device would act like a mobile weather station. This may be used to inform the rural people not only about the upcoming natural disaster but also to help in choosing the correct corps to be planted or ploughed. Index Terms— Embedded weather forecasting unit, Mobile weather station, Embedded system, Cost effective weather predicting device.

I. INTRODUCTION Weather Forecasting is one of the most important activities of the Meteorological Department. Weather change has become even more unpredictable due to Global Warming. The most affected areas are rural areas due to lack of costlyequipments. Security of human life as well as other sectors e.g. production of crops etc gets affected by this. To provide the information about current weather condition to the people of rural areas (as well as urban areas) we propose the idea of “Instant Weather Forecasting” that delivers messages to the people of the village via a remote weather centre by predicting instantly current weather condition through our proposed system. This system is power efficient and low cost [1][2]. II. MOTIVATION Development of a low power, low cost weather prediction system targeted towards the rural sector was the primary motivation for this work. Instant weather forecasting is very much necessary in these areas as there is © Elsevier, 2013

no other means available easily viz. Television, electronic media etc. Huge amount of crops is wasted every year due to the natural calamities like heavy rainfall, cyclones, etc. So we propose here a cost effective, fast, accurate as well as reliable method of Instant Weather Forecasting using various sensors and GSM module [3]. III. TECHNICAL BACKGROUND The purpose of short-range weather forecasting today is to provide various users with information on the anticipated weather over forthcoming two or three days for the sites in the areas of a few square million Kilometres. So that concerned people can take necessary precautions beforehand and can gain maximum advantage.Attempts to predict weather on the basis of simple qualitative rules and subjective judgments have a multi-century history [4][5][6]. In [20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26],various techniques with different approaches are reported with the integration of latest available technologies and systems viz. GPS (Global Positioning System), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Remote Sensing technology, Ingredient based methods and so on. It is very important in different national sectors [22, 26, 27]. Though the weather is an entirely dynamic process, but to implement this method into a device we targeted on the major influencing parameters only viz. temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, and wind-speed [7][8][9]. Atmospheric pressure changes due to several reasons. The most commonly used way to forecast a change in the weather is to track and get a combined effect of those parameters. From barometric readings local weather may be forecasted as follows [10]. Definitions of different pressure tendency terms are described in Table 1.  Decreasing barometric pressure indicates storms, rain and windy weather.  Rising barometric pressure indicates fair, dry and cold weather.  Slow, regular and moderate falls in pressure suggest a low pressure area is passing some distance away.Marked changes in the weather are unlikely.  Small rapid decrease in pressure indicates a nearby change in weather. They are usually followed by shortlasting wind and showers.  A quick drop in pressure over a short time indicates a storm is likely in 5 to 6 hours.  Large, slow and sustained decreasing pressure forecasts a long period of poor weather. The weather will bemore pronounced if the pressure started rising before it began to drop.  A rapid rise in pressure, during fair weather and average, or above average pressure, indicates a lowpressure cell is approaching. The pressure will soon decrease forecasting poorer weather.  Quickly rising pressure, when the pressure is low, indicate a short period of fair weather is likely.  A large slow and sustained rise in pressure forecasts a long period of good weather is on its way. TABLE I: DEFINITIONS OF PRESSURE TENDENCY T ERMS AND PREDICTION TABLE [10] Term Steady Rising or falling Slowly Rising or falling Rising or falling quickly Rising or falling rapidly

Pressure Tendency Over 3 Hours Less than 0.1 mb 0.1 to 1.5 mb 1.6 to 3.5 mb 3.6 to 6 mb More than 6.0 mb

Speed of wind depends on local pressure gradients. As a general rule of thumb, Table 2 gives the likely Beaufort Scale wind speed expected for a given pressure tendency over land and over water. Such winds will likely also be gusty, so peak winds can be significantly higher [11][12]. TABLE II: PRESSURE TENDENCY AND RESULTANT WIND SPEED Pressure Tendency 1 mb/hour 2 mb/hour 3 mb/hour or more

Resulting wind Speed (Beaufort Scale Number) Over Sea Over Land 6 4-5 7-8 5-7 Over 8 Above 6

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To make a simple, cost effective device we followed simplest baro-tropic forecast model for idealized atmosphere (uniform air density) to give better and reliable forecast [13]. IV. GOAL OF THE PROPOSED MODEL Throughout the design our primary concern was the applicability of the model particularly in rural areas but it can be beneficial for urban areas too. The objective is to provide people of villages with current weather conditions so that they can take precautionary measures to overcome the coming situation. In this proposed system we have tried to make a system that will be placed in a small remote weather station for small villages. It will be able to calculate the condition of the weather instantly and also forecast the locality’s upcoming weather and report it to the employee of the station. Through the weather station the current weather information can be delivered to all the residents through SMS by using a GSM module. These all helps in as follows.  Faster and efficient and local climate analysis.  Instant and advance warnings of the heavy rainfall, cyclone, etc. to avoid damage.  Less error in prediction for software logic. Battery PMC

Switch

Receiver

Transmitter

Sensor Circuit

Buffer

Processer

Figure 1: Circuit Diagram

V. PROPOSED SOLUTION In the proposed scheme as presented in the Figure 1, the sensor network consists of various sensors deployed to find the mobile weather. The pulsed mode of operation ensures less power consumption from the battery than a continuous voltage supply. The PMC helps avoiding the reduction of biasing voltage in various devices. The Buffer Chip is used to take care of any impedance mismatch that might arise between the Sensor network and Microcontroller. There is provision to send the data, using GSM module through SMS, collected by the forecasting chip, to a central server or control room through a transmitter. Through LCD display any one can check the weather forecasting message [14] from the system itself. VI. IMPLEMENTATION A. Hardware implementation Figure 2 shows the pin connection of the schematics drawn in Eagle Software for the development of the PCB. Switch gets power from the battery. The output of the switch is connected to the Power Management Switch that provides same biasing voltage to the rest part of the circuit. The output of the Power Management Chip goes to the Vcc terminal of the Temperature Sensor and the Buffer. Buffer forwards the sensor readings to the Microcontrollerto forecast the weather in an uninterrupted manner [15]. System Requirements: For the development of the proposed system, components used are amplifiers, switch, power management chip, and microcontroller. Details of which are given below [16]. l. Amplifier - The amplifier used is Low Noise, Low Quiescent Current, and Precision Operational Amplifier. 2. Switch - A Dual FET Bus Switch having 2.5/3.3V Low Voltage High Bandwidth Bus Switch is used. 3. Power Management Chip - A High Efficiency Single Inductor Buck-Boost Converter with 4-A switches is used. 4.Microcontroller –Arduino Uno ATmega328 is the microcontroller used in the proposed design. 431

Other major components used are Pressure Sensor, Humidity sensor, Temperature Sensor, GPRS Quad band Module, GPRS antenna, and SIM card.

Figure 2: Pin configuration for the development of the dedicated PCB

Figure 3: Plot of Humidity Sensor

Response of the Humidity Sensor: Response of the humidity sensor under experimental condition is noted and plotted in Figure 3. Pressure Sensor: The typical full-scale span is 140 mV and the typical temperature coefficient of the span equals 22% FS/100 °C for pressure range of 0 to 6.5  105 Pa. Temperature sensor: This System works properly between 106600 Pa to 950000 Pa. B. Software Implementation Proposed software logic calculates the pressure difference and based on that considering current temperature and humidity it uses to give rest. From the point of displaying result it is also enabled to transmit that forecast in specific pre specified mobile numbers. Pseudo code of the proposed logic based on theoretical methods proposed in [8,10,17] may be described as follows in Figure 4. Printed Circuit Board designed and fabricated for the proposed system prototype and tested. 432

Algorithmforecast_weather( ) Input: Readings from Pressure, Temperature, and Humidity sensors Output: Display weather forecast Begin Initialize LCD. Calculate the Pressure Difference, PD /*PD = previous atmospheric pressure (recorded) – current atmospheric pressure*/ If (abs(PD) < 0.1) Then Steady print_forecast("Fair & Dry weather"); Else If ((abs(PD) >= 0.1) and (abs(PD) = 1.6) and (abs(PD) = 3.6) and (abs(PD) = 6) Then Rising or falling (if PD is negative) rapidly print_forecast("a storm or rain is likely in 2 to 3 hours& long period of poor weather”); Current atmospheric pressure = previous atmospheric pressure; Display_weather_Forecast( ); Transmit/Broadcast SMS using GSM module; End Figure 4: Pseudo code of algorithm for weather forecasting

VII. RESULTS Proposed set up has been implemented in laboratory and several readings in different time and in different locations have been recorded. As the system has been implemented as a prototype model so the central server model has not been implemented but we have tested that it can send weather forecast as a message to a specific mobile number. Some snapshots of the forecasting display unit are shown as follows in figure 5 during a sample run into the laboratory. GSM module has been implemented with standard features. Existing solution has been used for the purpose.

Figure 5: Outputs of sample run shown in display panel

VIII. CONCLUSION In this work, our objective was to design and implement a system that can efficiently detect the weather parameters and gives a correct prediction about the fore coming weather condition. Novelties and importance of the work lies in manifolds. First, this would positively forewarn the travellers moving in a vehicle about the possible weather conditions further down the road, and hence decide whether to proceed or not. Secondly, it would certainly prove to be life saving at places where there are chances of sudden deterioration in weather conditions such as storms, heavy rainfall, or any other natural calamity caused due to bad weather conditions. Next, feasibility of communication (transmission or broadcasting) of such critical information has also been tested and verified under the experimental conditions and framework. Moreover, this work, with some medications would prove to be an indispensable part in the field of agriculture. The farmers could be forewarned about the weather conditions and thus be helped to take suitable steps to minimize their losses in 433

case of bad Weather conditions. Besides, weather prediction for rain fed farmers it may also be applied for banking perception clearance [18, 19] with proper usage of this device. REFERENCES [1] Weather forecasting, URL: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_forecasting. [2] Predictive Skills & Procedure of weather forecasting, URL: www.britannica.com / EBchecked / topic / 638321 / weather-forecasting / 49630 / Predictive-skills-and-procedures. [3] Understanding Weather Forecasting, URL: www.usatoday.com / weather / wforcst0.htm [4] Barry R. and Chorley R., "Atmosphere, Weather, and Climate", Seventh edition, Routledge (1998). [5] Geer I.W. (ed.). “Glossary of Weather and Climate, Boston,” MA, USA: American Meteorological Society. (1996). [6] Marchuk G.I “Numerical Methods in Weather Prediction”, New York - London: Academic Press. . (1974). [7] Alberto Troccoli, “Seasonal Climate: Forecasting and Managing Risk”, Springer,2008. [8] Understanding Weather Forecasting, URL: www.islandnet.com / ~see / weather / doctor.htm [9] Thompson Ph.D., "Numerical Weather Analysis and Prediction", New York: The Macmillan Company.(1961). [10] The Weather Doctor, URL: http: // www.islandnet.com / ~see / weather / eyes / barometer3.htm [11] Tim Vasquez “Weather Forecasting Handbook” Weather Graphics Technologies; 5th edition (June 2002). [12] Michael Hodgson, “Basic Essentials: Weather Forecasting,” Falcon Guides; 3rd edition (January 1, 2007) [13] S. L. Belousov and L. V. Berkovich , “Short-Term Weather Forecasting”, ENVIRONMENTAL STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION: CLIMATE SYSTEM, Vol. I, Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, (EOLSS), ---. [14] Ivan Simeonov, HristoKilifarev, RaychoIlarionov “Embedded system for short-term weather forecasting”, International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies (CompSysTech), 2006. [15] PIC16F87X Data Sheet – 28 / 40 pin 8-Bit CMOS EEPROM / Flash Microcontrollers, Microchip Technology Inc, 2001. [16] Texas Instruments India, URL: www.ti.com/ [17] Robert Fitzroy, “Barometer and Weather Guide”, Dodo Press (January 16, 2009). [18] Thunderstorm, URL: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderstorm [19] Bureau of Meteorology, URL: www.bom.gov.au/index.shtml?ref=logo [20] Holtslag, A. A. M., DE BRUIJN, and H. L. Pan. "A high resolution air mass transformation model for short-range weather forecasting." Monthly Weather Review 118.8 (1990): 1561-1575. [21] Grimit, Eric P., and Clifford F. Mass. "Initial results of a mesoscale short-range ensemble forecasting system over the Pacific Northwest." Weather and Forecasting 17.2 (2002): 192-205. [22] Chen, S-T., David C. Yu, and Alireza R. Moghaddamjo. "Weather sensitive short-term load forecasting using nonfully connected artificial neural network." Power Systems, IEEE Transactions on 7.3 (1992): 1098-1105. [23] Murphy, Allan H., “Skill scores based on the mean square error and their relationships to the correlation coefficient”, Monthly weather review 116.12 (1988): 2417-2424. [24] Doswell, Charles A., Harold E. Brooks, and Robert A. Maddox. "Flash flood forecasting: An ingredients-based methodology." Weather and Forecasting 11.4 (1996): 560-581. [25] Bevis, Michael, et al. "GPS meteorology- Remote sensing of atmospheric water vapor using the Global Positioning System." Journal of Geophysical Research 97.D14 (1992): 15787-15801. [26] Otte, Tanya L., et al. "Linking the Eta model with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system to build a national air quality forecasting system." Weather and Forecasting 20.3 (2005): 367-384. [27] Fox, Frederic D., et al. "System and method for the advanced prediction of weather impact on managerial planning applications." U.S. Patent No. 5,521,813. 28 May 1996.

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