Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

Publication Title

Technology Interface International Journal

Volume

23

Issue

2

Pages

17-27

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to present one possible way to engage undergraduate students in designing a system that uses the Internet of Things (IoT) strategy for data acquisition and management. The MATLAB home weather station project presented here was developed by a team of students for the senior design course in the Electrical Engineering Technology undergraduate program at Old Dominion University (ODU). The main purpose of this project was for undergraduate students to learn how to create a localized, compact, and precise weather station. Utilizing various sensors, both homemade and sourced online, this weather station is capable of reading and displaying many useful weather details. Since a large variety of home weather stations are already available commercially, students started this project by investigating the existing designs and comparing the commercially available solutions. Then they started developing their own solutions, tailored to their own expectations for a weather station system.

In this paper, the authors also include the steps of the design process done by a team of undergraduate students who were focusing on the real-life aspects and were coming up with a new model of a home weather station. Following the steps of the project presented here, one would gain the tools to create, calibrate, and customize their own Arduino home weather station. This is an all-in-one, self-sustaining station that collects outside weather details from the area where the user needs localized weather data and transmits that data wirelessly over Bluetooth to the point where the user is located so they can collect and visualize the data from the comfort of their own home. The data are collected outdoors using various sensors connected to an Arduino UNO. Using a Bluetooth transmitter, the Arduino UNO wirelessly communicates sensor data to a receiver connected to the USB slot of an indoor computer. The computer runs a MATLAB program that takes the data received through the USB and graphically displays plots of the temperature, humidity, air pressure, precipitation, wind speed, wind direction, and cloud cover. With such a project, various teaching objectives can be accomplished, and students can learn about a broad variety of topics, including sensors, microcontrollers, communication systems, as well as data acquisition and processing.

Rights

© 2023 Technology Interface International Journal. All Rights Reserved.

Included with the kind written permission of the editor.

Original Publication Citation

Dutton, S., Galderisi, K., Kuzlu, M., Popescu, O., & Jovanovic, V. (2023). Teaching data acquisition through the Arduino-driven home weather station project. Technology Interface International Journal, 23(2), 17-27. https://tiij.org/issues/issues/spring2023/X__TIIJ%20spring%202023%20v23%20n2.pdf#page=19

ORCID

0000-0002-8719-2353 (Kuzlu), 0000-0002-8626-903X (Jovanovic)

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