IoT to measure and analyse meteorological data

At the turn of the year 2018/2019, meteorologists at Ghent University racked their brains over how they could improve, or rather extend the existing system for obtaining meteorological data.

Not only did the project embrace a new way of involving schools in this citizen science project, it also is employing the latest IoT technology in measuring and analyzing the data attained.

For maximum flexibility, the weather stations are powered by solar panels, which are optimized to get a maximum output even on a short winter’s day. Observations are transferred to a university server every 5 minutes. To guarantee low-power data communication, the Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) data communication network is used. All data collected is collected on the AllThingsTalk by ALSO IoT platform. From there it is going to the VLINDER website. All measurements can be followed in realtime via the existing Weather Observations Website platform or the dashboard developed specifically for the VLINDER project.