In this project a Weather-Data Acquisition and Management System has been developed. In this system an Arduino-based microcontorller (client) interfaces different kinds of sensors and forms the core entity of the weather-station developed throughout this project. Acquired data is then forwarded to a RaspberryPi-based device (server) where data is processed and permanently stored in MySQL databases. A GUI-Application (CoSESWeatherApp) has been developed to enable users to conveniently interact with the system (weather-data export, account management, system commands etc.).

• CoSES Weather-Station: View current weather and weather-trends in Garching: CoSES: Weather-Station Website
• Download the App: Download the latest version of the CoSESWeatherApp: Download

The utilized structure of this project-repository is listed below. As the list shows, this project is split into four sub-directories. Important files are also listed and briefly discussed respectively.

• Client: Source-code for the microcontroller

  • CoSESClient.ino: To be flashed onto the microcontroller

• CoSESWeatherApp: App-Development (GUI)

  • CoSESWeatherApp.py: Main source-file of the app (logic and functionality)
  • CoSESWeatherApp_ui.ui: Main source-file of GUI in QtDesigner-format (visual appearance)
  • CoSESWeatherApp_ui.py: Main source-file of GUI converted to python-format
  • convert_ui_to_py_MyApp.bat: Batch-file to convert QtDesigner-format (.ui-files) to python-code (.py-files)
  • CoSESWeatherApp.spec: Specification-file (spec-file) tells PyInstaller how to bundle the app
  • BuildApp.bat: Batch-file to start PyInstaller and bundle the app according to the spec-file

• Server: Source-code for the server

  • CoSESServer.py: Main server-process (opens socket to acquire raw data forwarded by microcontroller)
  • CoSESDriver.py: WeeWx-driver (interface between server-process, databases and WeeWx-framework)
  • db_manager.php: Database API-script (functionality and queries)
  • db_config.php: Database API-script (authentication data)
  • CoSESWeather.ini: Path-file (contains URLs and file-paths utilized in the project)
  • CoSESServerManager.sh: Helper-script (monitoring and restarting of system-processes)
  • MySQLBackUp.sh: Helper-script (backup creation of MySQL databases)
  • WatchDogResetter.sh: Reset of watchdog-timer (on server-side)
  • localhost.sql: Initial database-structure (can be imported to create required database-tables)

• WeeWx: Modified WeeWx-framework installation

  • weewx-3.9.1(CoSESWeather_mod).tar.gz: WeeWx weather-station framework (modified installation package)

This section gives a brief overview on the required third-party modules and libraries utilized in this project.

• Python 2.7 (Python language and interpreter): Python 2.7
• PyQt4 and QtWebKit (GUI development): PyQt4 GUI toolkit
• requests (Sending HTTP/1.1 requests): HTTP for Humans
• configparser (Configuration-file management): ConfigParser
• xlsxwriter (Excel-file creation): XlsxWriter
• PyInstaller (Bundles project): PyInstaller

• Arduino (IDE and standard modules): Arduino IDE
• Controllino (Microcontroller library): Controllino Lib
• MAX31865 (PT100 amplifier library): MAX31865 Lib
• PT100 (PT100 look-up table): PT100 LookUp

The commands needed in order to install required packages are listed below. Administrative privileges on the target devicve are required for installation.

• Apache2 (HTTP web-server)

sudo apt install apache2

• MySQL (database management system)

sudo apt install mariadb-server

• phpMyAdmin (web-based tool for database management)

sudo apt install phpmyadmin

• PHP (programming language required by phpMyAdmin and Apache)

sudo apt install php php-mbstring libapache2-mod-php 

• MySQL connector for PHP

sudo apt install php-mysql

The popular open-source weather-station framework WeeWx is used in this project. For detailed information on functionality and customization the extensive documentation on the WeeWx-website is to be considered.

Website: WeeWx Framework