Persistent Sensor Web Testbed: Weather Stations

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Live data

If you want to see live data, just checkout the Javascript SOS Client instance running on our demo server. The last link provides access to the TimeSeriesAPI which contains means to easily access sensor data using a RESTful approach combined with JSON encoding for building smart modern web applications like the mobile sensor web client.

Vaisala WXT 520 (Homepage) Get the latest observations Air temperature in REST API All available time series via TS API	ELV WS2500 Get the latest observations Air temperature in SWC Air temperature in REST API All available time series via TS API	52°North Server room Get the latest observations Air temperature in SWC Air temperature in REST API All available time series via TS API
MS KLI Robert-Koch-Strasse Get the latest observations Air temperature in SWC Air temperature in REST API All available time series via TS API	MS KLI Heisenbergstrasse Get the latest observations Air temperature in SWC Air temperature in REST API All available time series via TS API

The TimeSeriesAPI also offers an the "explorer" user interface. A list of all stations of the testbed can be found here: http://sensorweb.demo.52north.org/sensorwebclient-webapp-stable/explorer/#/SOS-Q/stations

Set-up at 52°North Offices

Overview

The set-up at the 52°North offices uses two weather stations and one PC to run the logger and feeding components connected to the Internet. The Vaisala WXT 520 is a very compact station without any moving parts, hence it's very easy to maintain and long lasting. It is mounted on a alloy arm fixed on the balcony railing. A 3m USB connection cable provides the power supply and connection to PC. The ELV WS 2500 uses several separated sensors mounted on a steel pole. Each sensor has its own solar panel for power supply. The observations are send regularly to the base station which is directly connected to the PC. This base stations provides some additional observations about our server room climate (humidity and temperature). The observations are regularly received/requested by logging components running on the PC. This logging output is used by our SOS importer in three different configurations for importing data to a SOS instance. Due to these different importer configurations, it is possible to request data for the following three features ( See Live data section!):

• Vaisala WXT 520
• ELV WS2500
• 52°North Server room ( measurements provided by the WS2500 base station)

This data is consumable by different clients provided by 52°North like the SensorWebClient (incl. the TimeSeriesAPI), the mobile sensor web client (under heavy development now), and the ArcGIS SOS Adapter, for example. Just build your own client and start receiving data using the OGC SOS 2.0 standard or the reduced TimeSeriesAPI providing smart means for accessing time series data hosted by a SOS.

Software Components and Services

The PC is running a Windows version because the logging software of the two stations is not available for linux or other systems. In addition, the SOS importer requires a JVM to run and hence it's running on the same machine. Every 15 minutes the logger is requesting new data for both stations. The importer is running every 20 minutes to import new data for the three different features.

Components:

• Data logger
  • Vaisala logger
  • Weather station software to retrieve ELV WS2500 observations
• Weather data collector
• Importer
  • Configuration for vaisala station
  • Configuration for elv external sensors
  • Configuration for elv internal sensors
  • Configuration for files created by Weather Data Collector
• Hosting system

The current configuration results in the following start up behavior:

System boot → autologin to user → start of vaisala online monitor → after 60 seconds → start feeding from latest feeded observation (re-feed every 15 minutes from now on) → after 30 seconds start feeding of ELV WS2500 (re-feed every 15 minutes) → after 30 seconds start feeding of ELV WS2500 base station observations (re-feed every 15 minutes) → after 60 seconds → lock workstation.

Autolock screen

Just place the following *.cmd file in the autostart folder of the autologin user:

@ECHO off
rem
rem 
rem
SET "CURRENT_DIR=%cd%"
ECHO Current dir: %CURRENT_DIR%
ECHO Wait 120 seconds before locking the workstation
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 120000 > nul
rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

Autostart feeder

1. Place latest *-bin.jar under C:\Programme\52North\SOS-Feeder
2. Add configuration file matching the current set-up (regarding location of datafiles and SOS URL) in the same folder (see SOS-Importer configuration for Vaisala WXT520 using POX binding)
3. Link the following command file in the autostart folder of the autologin user ( the file MUST be placed in the same directory with the jar and config file):

   @ECHO off
   rem
   rem 
   rem
   SET "CURRENT_DIR=%cd%"
   ECHO Current dir: %CURRENT_DIR%
   ECHO Wait 60 seconds before starting application
   ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 60000 > nul
   ECHO Try to start application...
   java -jar 52n-sos-importer-feeder-0.4.0-SNAPSHOT-bin.jar -c  ".\52n-sos-import-config_Vaisala_WXT520_NMEA-0183-V3.0.xml" -d "C:\Programme\Vaisala Configuration Tool" -p 5
   ECHO application finished.
   PAUSE

4. This set-up will start feeding 60 seconds after autologin and re-feed every 5 minutes updating the SOS with 180 observations each time.

Autostart Vaisala monitoring tool

1. Install vaisala USB drivers BEFORE attaching the station to the system
2. Attach the station to the system
3. Start logging monitor and select to write to files in the options screen
4. Add link to vaisala online monitor in autostart folder of autologin user.

Transactional Security

To ensure, that only data from our offices is inserted into the SOS, we are using the Transactional Security feature. This is a build-in IP filter for all transactional operations provided by the 52°North SOS v4.x.

Windows XP autologin

1. Start regedit.
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.
3. Update entry DefaultUserName to match autologin user.
4. Ensure existence of entry DefaultPassword setting to the password of this user.
5. Ensure existence of entry AutoAdminLogon with value 1.

Weather Stations

The testbed data from several weather stations in Münster.

• 52°North offices
  • Vaisala WXT 520
  • ELV WS2500
  • 52°North Server room ( measurements provided by the WS2500 base station)
• Fachbereicht Geowissenschaften, Uni Münster
  • weather station in Robert-Koch-Str. 28, see http://www.uni-muenster.de/Klima/wetter/stations_besch.shtml, see configuration example here: https://github.com/52North/WeatherDataCollector/blob/master/src/main/resources/config.properties
  • weather station in Heisenbergstr. 2

Images of the Stations at 52°North

The stations are placed on the first floor balcony at the 52°North offices in the south of Münster. That is arguably a bad place for some observed properties (mainly wind and rain), but good enough to test the informatics aspects and most importantly very close.

Journal

• -- EikeJuerrens - 22 Mar 2017 - 14:37
  • Reactivated WS2500, Vaisala WXT520, weather data collector. Lot's of datagaps starting from 10.2016 until 22.03.2017.
• -- EikeHinderkJuerrens - 2016-06-06
  • Reactivated WS2500. Missing data from 04.06.2016 - 06.06.2016
• -- EikeHinderkJuerrens - 2016-04-15
  • Reactivated WS2500. Missing data from 18.03.2016 - 15.04.2016
• -- EikeHinderkJuerrens - 2016-03-22
  • Station WS2500 is not working correct (some external sensors are failing), hence the whole station will be not feeded. Repair/review is planned for the 04.04.2016.
• -- EikeHinderkJuerrens - 2015-08-11
  • ELV WS2500 crashed around 14.07.2015. Hence, we need to set-up the sevice supervisor to get informed earlier.