Development of Meteorological Station using Arduino and Android

Application for Data Processing

Dmytro Medvediev

, Anatolii Suprun

, Yuliia Lysenko

, Vitalii Zadorozhnii

and Yuliia Lavrinenko

State University of Economics and Technology, 50005 Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine

Kryvyi Rih Lyceum of Nature and Sciences, 50071, Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine

National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, 03056 Kyiv, Ukraine

vitaliy_zadorozhniy@ukr.net

Keywords: Arduino, Android, Bluetooth, Data Transfer, Meteorological Station, Mobile Phone.

Abstract: The article shows the interaction between Android and Arduino, namely wireless data transfer from Arduino

devices and data processing in the application for the Android system. A prototype meteorological station

was created using temperature, pressure and humidity sensors. An android application has been developed to

receive and display information from the meteorological station. Bluetooth is used as a wireless data channel

from the meteorological station to the Android application. The versatility of the proposed application is added

by the fact that it is not connected to sensors and can receive, display and store data from any Bluetooth device.

1 INTRODUCTION

Thanks to the Internet of Things, we are getting closer

to the time when the house will be controlled by only

one device. This era has not yet come, but there are

already a lot of programs that help control the TV,

computer, media center and many other "smart"

devices. The combination of Android and Arduino

provides great opportunities for modern projects,

simplifying remote programming, management and

data synchronization. Mobile applications on a

smartphone allow you to interact with real physical

objects from anywhere on Earth using the usual

gadgets.

Wireless technologies use the environment

instead of wires as a data transmission medium. At

the same time, they provide the user with significant

mobility due to the wide (depending on the type)

range. They are actively expanding, signal stability is

increasing, data rates are increasing, energy

consumption is decreasing. The need for the

development of such technologies due to the

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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8059-363X

emergence of mobile and portable devices in our lives

is not reduced.

The aim of the article is to explore the possibilities

of combining systems such as Android and Arduino,

to show the possibility of using an application that is

simple on the one hand, and on the other allows you

to receive and store data from Arduino boards.

E. Vasinsky, N. Yaremchuk, V. Husar in the work

"Autonomous system for measuring climatic

parameters" consider systems for monitoring climatic

parameters, such as temperature and relative

humidity, as well as the level of carbon dioxide in the

air (Vasinsky & Yaremchuk, 2017). In their system,

the authors suggest using a battery and a solar panel

to charge the battery, data transmission is provided

using Bluetooth wireless technology. The whole

system is built on inexpensive, easily replaceable

components, which provides a low cost of the whole

system: the microcontroller is an Arduino Uno R3

board, as a Bluetooth module - model HC-05, to

measure humidity and temperature, the use of DHT22

sensor, and to determine air quality sensor MQ-135.

248

Medvediev, D., Suprun, A., Lysenko, Y., Zadorozhnii, V. and Lavrinenko, Y.

Development of Meteorological Station using Arduino and Android Application for Data Processing.

DOI: 10.5220/0011351300003350

In Proceedings of the 5th International Scientiﬁc Congress Society of Ambient Intelligence (ISC SAI 2022) - Sustainable Development and Global Climate Change, pages 248-255

ISBN: 978-989-758-600-2

The proposed system allows you to monitor and

measure climatic parameters, as well as analyze them

using the Android application (Saini et al., 2016). It

should be noted that in the above-mentioned work,

the methods of measurement and data processing are

considered, but the application interface for the

Android system and the principles of its development

are not clear.

Arduino microcontrollers are often used to study

meteorological phenomena. So white the system of

research of melting of glaciers on the basis of Arduino

UNO is offered. Electronic Ablation Stations (fig. 1)

consist of sets of CPVC hot water tubes and a sensor

and datalogger module.

Figure 1: Electronic Ablation Station (eAS) schematic

view.

The technology used to read the behavior of the

glacier was the RFID, which is based on the use of

radio frequency and electromagnetic fields for

identification and tracking of the attached tags on

objects, in this case stakes. The sensor used was the

ID-20LA, a very simple to use RFID reader module

with a built-in antenna, operating at 125 kHz

frequency and needs a proximity of 10 cm of the tag

to make the recognition. The system is controlled by

an Arduino Uno microcontroller, and the data is

stored on a 4 GB microSD memory card. Every

system is powered by a12 V/7Ah 1battery,

maintained by a 10 W solar panel. The Automatic

Weather Station was developed using the Arduino

prototype platform and sensors compatible with this

environment. A systemic diagram of this Automatic

Weather Station can be divided into three main

groups: Data logger, power system and tri-pod. The

power system consists of a 10 W solar panel

measuring 20x30 cm. A 7 Ah NicCad battery

supports all system and its load as well as the

connections to the data logger are made by means of

a load regulator, LandStar LS0512R with rated cur-

rent of 5 A. Every system operates at rated voltage of

12 V. The data logger is mounted in a PVC watertight

case, using an Arduino Uno microcontroller, a Micro

SD card reader module responsible for storing the

data and a Real Time Clock module RTC DS1307,

responsible for maintaining the system’s calendar and

clock. Data is stored on 4 GBytes Micro SD memory

cards. But the cost of the whole complex is over

US$850, which makes it inaccessible for home use.

The intelligent weather station system based on

Arduino was designed by Beijing Institute of Fashion

Technology (Jing Xin et al., 2016). A simple set of

environmental information monitoring system had

been designed based on Arduino Uno. It contains the

temperature and humidity sensor, atmospheric

pressure sensor, the wireless transmission module and

clock module. The system not only can real-time

monitoring of environmental information, and can

use the wireless module to transmit environment

information to PC. This design has advantages of low

cost, low energy consumption and high speed. It not

only can be used to detect such as stable family

environment, can also be used in complex

environment, such as industrial and agricultural

information monitoring. This system is characterized

of high reliability and expansibility. It can choose

appropriate dust sensors or ultraviolet sensors to

monitor the environment dust concentration and uv

intensity. But to control it you need a PC, which

makes it inconvenient to use.

Today, various manufacturers offer the use of

home meteorological stations for use within a smart

home. They can use wired and wireless

communication with sensors. An example of such a

weather station is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Home meteorological stations.

Development of Meteorological Station using Arduino and Android Application for Data Processing

249

Such devices have a similar interface. These

devices typically have two temperature sensors and

two humidity sensors for measuring inside and

outside the house. A clock has been added to the

weather station properties.

2 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

2.1 Arduino

The data transmitter is a meteorological station

consisting of an Arduino Nano3 board, a DHT-11

humidity and temperature sensor, a bmp180 pressure

and temperature sensor and a HC-06 Bluetooth

wireless data module. Let's briefly consider these

components and their characteristics.

Arduino Nano (Fig. 3) is a full-featured miniature

device based on a microcontroller ATmega328

(Arduino Nano 3.0) or ATmega168 (Arduino Nano

2.x), adapted for use with a prototyping board.

Figure 3: Arduino Nano board.

The device is similar in functionality to the

Arduino Duemilanove, and differs from it in size,

lack of power connector, as well as another type of

(Mini-B) USB cable. The program memory of the

ATmega328 microcontroller is 32 KB (of which 2

KB is also allocated for the bootloader). In addition,

the ATmega328 microcontroller has 32 KB of RAM.

Using the pin Mode (), digital Write () and digital

Read () functions, each of the 14 digital pins of the

Arduino Nano can operate as an input or output.

Operating voltage of outputs - 5V. The maximum

current that can give or consume one output is 40 mA.

All outputs are connected to internal resistors

(disabled by default) of 20-50 kО. In addition to the

main ones, some Arduino outputs can perform

additional functions.

Serial interface: outputs 0 (RX) and 1 (TX). Used

to receive (RX) and transmit (TX) data over the serial

interface. These pins are connected to the

corresponding pins of the USB-UART converter chip

from FTDI. It is through these outputs that wireless

data transmission via Bluetooth is organized.

Bluetooth module HC-06 (Fig. 4) is designed for

wireless serial communication (HC 06 Bluetooth

module pinout, features & datasheet, 2021). It can

receive serial data if it is sent from the Bluetooth

headset. When the module receives wireless data, it

transmits it through the serial interface. The Arduino

chip does not require any source code specific to the

Bluetooth module.

Figure 4: Bluetooth module HC-06.

The HC-06 module has four pins that are required

for connection to the UNO Arduino. VCC is used to

obtain the input voltage, connected to pin 5V on the

board. The GND on the module is a ground contact

that plugs into the appropriate contact on the Arduino.

RXD and TXD are the receiving and transmitting

contacts on the module, the corresponding contacts

on the Arduino Nano board - D0 and D1.

The most available pressure sensors, which are

often used in various homemade electronic devices,

include BOSH sensors: BMP085 and BMP180. The

second barometer is newer, but fully compatible with

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the old version. Range of measured values: from 30

kPa to 110 kPa; supply voltage: from 3.3 to 5 V;

current: 5 μA at a data refresh rate of 1 Hertz.

The BMP 180 sensor (Fig. 5) has an I2C interface,

so it can be easily connected to any platform in the

family. When the bmp180 - Arduino Nano is

connected, the corresponding contacts are connected:

GND-GND, VCC-5V, SDA-A4, SCL-A5.

Figure 5: Atmospheric pressure sensor BMP180

The procedure for obtaining pressure from the

sensor is not trivial, and consists of several stages. In

a simplified form, the algorithm looks like this:

 ask the barometer for data from the built-in

temperature sensor;

 wait for time A while the sensor evaluates the

temperature;

 get the temperature;

 ask the barometer for pressure;

 wait for time B while the sensor evaluates the

pressure;

 get the value of pressure;

 return the pressure value from the function.

The DHT11 sensor (Fig. 6) is very popular and is

often used in meteorological station and smart home

projects (Датчики температуры и влажности

DHT11 и DHT22 и Arduino Arduino-diy.com,

2021). This sensor is easy to use, you can safely use

it in your projects. The sensor consists of two parts -

a capacitive temperature sensor and a hygrometer.

The first is used to measure temperature, the second -

for humidity. Inside the chip can perform analog-to-

digital conversions and output a digital signal that is

read by a microcontroller.

Figure 6: DHT11 sensor with strapping.

In most cases, DHT11 is available in two

versions: as a separate sensor in the form of a plastic

housing with metal contacts or as a ready-made

module with a sensor and soldered strapping

elements. The second option is much easier to use in

real projects.

In this version of the sensor there are 3 contacts:

GND, VCC and a contact for digital data

transmission.

2.2 Program for Arduino

To write a sketch (program) for the operation of the

weather station you need to use special libraries for

sensors BMP180 and DHT11. Data is read from the

sensors every second, according to this period will be

transmitted via the Bluetooth module HC-06.

The program code looks like this:

#include <SFE_BMP180.h>

#include <Wire.h>

#include <DHT.h>

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

#define DHTPIN 7

DHT dht(DHTPIN, DHT11);

SFE_BMP180 pressure

void setup()

{

Serial.begin(9600

pressure.begin

dht.begin

BTserial.begin(38400);

}

void loop()

{

char status;

double T,P;

status =

pressure.startTemperature();

if (status != 0)

{

delay(status);

status =

pressure.getTemperature(T);

Development of Meteorological Station using Arduino and Android Application for Data Processing

251

if (status != 0)

{

status =

pressure.startPressure(3);

if (status != 0)

{

delay(status);

status =

pressure.getPressure(P,T);

if (status != 0)

{

Serial.print(P/1.33322);

} } } }

float h = dht.readHumidity();

Serial.print (h,0);

Serial.println (" %");

delay(500);

if (Serial.available())

{

BTserial.write(h, P, T);

}

2.3 Android

To control Arduino boards using Bluetooth wireless

technology, they usually use ready-made mobile

applications that are freely available on Google Play.

One example of such an application is the Arduino

Bluetooth Controller (fig. 7).

Figure 7:

Arduino Bluetooth Controller. Controller

mode.

This application has a simple interface and easy to

configure. The connection is in four different modes:

controller, switch, dim, terminal.

The controller mode is shown in Figure 8. This

mode is presented as a game controller interface.

Pressing any button on the screen sends the

appropriate command to the Arduino, which allows

you to conveniently transfer data and control your

robot using a mobile phone.

Figure 8: Arduino Bluetooth Controller/ Terminal mode.

Switching mode can only execute two commands.

This mode is convenient to use to remotely turn

devices on or off. As for the dimming mode, its

essence is that it can control such properties of the

device as speed or brightness, ie this mode changes

the value of the transmitted data. Such modes of

operation are not suitable for data reception at all.

Arduino Bluetooth Controller is one of the few

programs designed to control Arduino devices. In the

article "7 best applications on Android for Arduino

remote control" in addition to the above application,

there is an overview of six more, which are also

designed to control devices and have significant

limitations in data reception.

Thus, we can conclude that most applications for

the Arduino-Android pair are designed to control

devices, rather than to receive and store data from

them.

Therefore, it will be convenient for the user to use

not ready-made applications, but application

designers, which give greater opportunities to work

with information that is transmitted from Arduino to

Android and vice versa.

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Android Studio, an integrated development

environment (IDE) for the Android platform, was

chosen for programming the mobile phone

application. This programming application uses the

IntelliJ IDEA Community programming environment

coding developed by JetBrains. Android Studio is

part of an open development model and is distributed

under the Apache 2.0 license. With it, you can solve

common problems that allow you to develop

applications for the Android platform. Android

Studio includes tools for easy testing of software for

compatibility with different versions of the Android

operating system and tools for creating applications

that run on mobile devices with screens of different

resolutions (tablets, smartphones, laptops, watches,

glasses, etc.).

The application is created in two pages:

"Designer" and "Blocks". Consider the "Designer"

tab. Screen1 - the main screen, which consists of 4

blocks and 2 invisible components: Chasy1 and

Client Bluetooth1 (Fig. 9).

Figure 9: Application components.

The first and last, Horizontal Location 4 and

Horizontal Location 5, are designed to display text

and buttons correctly relative to the background

image. Block VerticalLocation1 contains Select From

List 1 - a button with a selection of paired Bluetooth-

devices from the list, HorizontalLocation3 to indent

between the button and the text in Caption1, which

displays the status of the connection to the weather

station. Vertical Location2 contains the Inscription 2,

which transmits the data received from the

meteorological station, and Horizontal Location6 for

correct display.

Clock 1 is an invisible component that provides a

countdown using the clock of the android gadget. It

allows you to track the current time, count time

intervals, etc. The unit of time for Clock 1 is a

millisecond, by default in the application the timer

interval is set to 1000, 1 second.

ClientBluetooth1 is an invisible component

designed to connect Bluetooth devices, data transfer,

etc.

Consider the "Blocks" tab: The application

consists of 5 main blocks (Fig. 10).

Figure 10: Application blocks.

The first block "initialize global" Data "in" ""

creates an empty variable "Data", which will be used

to record the information received from the

meteorological station. When you turn on the

application, the block "when Screen1.Initialize" is

triggered, it turns on the timer so that the information

in Caption2 can be updated at a specified interval of

1 second.

The third block "when SelectFromList1. Before

Select" receives a list of conjugated Bluetooth-

devices

("assign SelectionFromList1.Elements to

ClientBluetooth1.AddressNames").

The fourth block "when

SelectionFromList1.AfterSelection" after selecting

from the list of conjugated devices - connects to the

device, changes the inscription in Caption1 to

"Device selected".

The last block "when Clock1.Timer" if the timer

is on, updates every second information: checks

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whether the device is connected ("if

ClientBluetooth1.Connected"), whether there is data

to receive

("if the callClientBluetooth1.BytesAvailableFor

Accept> 0", if so - records the received information

in the variable "Data", and also displays on the screen

in "Inscription2".

The main screen of the application for receiving

data is shown in Figure 11. before selecting a device.

Figure 11: The main screen of the meteorological station

before selecting a Bluetooth device.

The main screen of the application after

connecting to a Bluetooth device and receiving data

(Fig. 12).

From fig. 12 you can see that the application for

the phone not only displays data obtained from

Arduino sensors, but also allows you to store them

and view at a user-friendly time.

Figure 12: The main screen of the meteorological station

after selecting a Bluetooth device.

The following is the part of the application that is

responsible for connecting two Bluetooth devices.

txtArduino = (TextView)

findViewById(R.id.txtArduino);

h = new Handler() { public void

handleMessage(android.os.Message msg)

{switch (msg.what) { case

RECIEVE_MESSAGE:

byte[] readBuf = (byte[]) msg.obj;

String strIncom = new

String(readBuf, 0, msg.arg1);

sb.append(strIncom int

endOfLineIndex = sb.indexOf("\r\n

if (endOfLineIndex > 0) { String

sbprint = sb.substring(0,

endOfLineIndex);

sb.delete(0, sb.length());

txtArduino.setText("Ответ от

Arduino: " + sbprint);

btnOff.setEnabled(true);

btnOn.setEnabled(true);

break;

} }; };

private class ConnectedThread

extends Thread

{ private final BluetoothSocket

mmSocket;

private final InputStream

mmInStream;

private final OutputStream

mmOutStream;

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public

ConnectedThread(BluetoothSocket socket)

{mmSocket = socket;

InputStream tmpIn = null;

OutputStream tmpOut = null;

try { tmpIn =

socket.getInputStream();

tmpOut = socket.getOutputStream();}

catch (IOException e) { }

mmInStream = tmpIn;

mmOutStream = tmpOut;

}

public void run() { byte[] buffer =

new byte[256]; int bytes;

while (true) {

try {

bytes = mmInStream.read(buffer);

h.obtainMessage(RECIEVE_MESSAGE,

bytes, -1,buffer).sendToTarget();}

catch (IOException e) {

break; } } }

3 CONCLUSIONS

The use of the Arduino to create measuring

instruments has long been popular, but in this article,

we try to show how the interaction of two different

systems simplifies the transmission, reception, and

processing of data. The study selected Bluetooth for

wireless data, which is most convenient for use within

a home or small household. That is, it is convenient

for data transmission over short distances,

economically accessible, easy to program and

operate. The result of the study is an application for a

smartphone with the Android operating system for

receiving data from the meteorological station. The

versatility of this application is added by the fact that

it is not connected to sensors and can receive, display

and store data from any Bluetooth device. This

application can be developed and can later be used to

manage a "smart home".

Compared to existing meteorological stations, this

development has advantages and disadvantages. The

advantage is convenient remote control. A

smartphone is always at hand for everyone, and a

locally installed weather station must be nearby. Also,

with the help of the application you can connect other

weather stations or devices according to the Bluetooth

protocol. However, the latter may be a disadvantage,

because the data from this meteorological station can

be obtained by anyone who installs the application.

REFERENCES

H. Saini, A. Thakur, S. Ahuja, N. Sabharwal, N. Kumar,

2016. Arduino based automatic wireless weather station

with remote graphical application and alerts, in: 3rd Int.

Conf. Signal Process. Integr. Networks, SPIN 2016,

pages 605–609.

N. Yaremchuk, R. Semenjuk, 2017. Working of verbal data

for the constructions of card. Metrology and devices, 5:

pages 58-61

Jing Xin GAO, Hao MA, Hao LIU, 2016. The intelligent

weather station system based on Arduino. International

Conference on Engineering and Advanced Technology

(ICEAT 2016), pages 300-308

Different Types of Wireless Communication Technologies.

https://www.watelectronics.com/different-types-of-

wireless-communication-technologies/

Zigbee. https://zigbeealliance.org/solution/zigbee/

Bluetooth Tutorial Tutorial-Reports.com.

http://www.tutorial-

reports.com/wireless/bluetooth/tutorial.php

Bluetooth® Technology Website.

https://www.bluetooth.com/

Датчики температуры и влажности DHT11 и DHT22 и

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diy.com/arduino-datchiki-temperatury-i-vlazhnosti-

DHT11-i-DHT22

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BLE, Zigbee, Z-Wave, 6LoWPAN, NFC, WiFi Direct,

GSM, LTE, LoRa, NB-IoT, and LTE-M.

https://predictabledesigns.com/wireless_technologies_

bluetooth_wifi_zigbee_gsm_lte_lora_nb-iot_lte-m/

What are ZigBee, WiFi, Bluetooth, BLE, and WiMax by

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bluetooth-ble-and-wimax-260916018f34

What is WiFi and How Does it Work - CCM.

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work

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module-pinout-datasheet

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