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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

In this chapter describes introduction, block diagram, aim and objectives. And
then scope of thesis and outlines of thesis are also described.

1.1. Introduction to Environmental Measuring and Monitoring via Web

Technology now has made it possible for various instrument or device to be
designed and constructed in order to make human life more profitable and enjoyable.
The system proposed is an advanced solution for weather monitoring that use IoT to
make its real time data easily accessible. Accurate environmental information is
essential to everyday activities, to maintain the growth of crops, to ensure the safe
working environment in some industries and so on. The system deals with
environmental information such as temperature, humidity, pressure, CO and UV and
so on. These sensors send the data to the web page and the sensor data is plotted as
graphical statistics. The data uploaded to the web page can easily be accessible from
anywhere in the world. These sensors are useful to know and can be collected via
various measuring devices in most weather stations as well as environmental testing
and monitoring systems. All these systems allow measuring weather or environmental
parameters either on the land or on sea for a proposed location and forecasting, and to
study patterns in changes of climate conditions.
Although such systems provide accurate information and forecast, their
coverage area is still less comparable to world geography. This means that a wider
geographical area is covered only by one station in some parts of the world. In this
situation remote areas away from that station cannot fully rely on that for day to day
activities. Thus, portable station or DIY station is welcomed for their significant lower
cost, yet provides usable weather data. These systems are usually implemented with
Arduino and some microcontrollers such as PIC, STM32, etc. In these systems,
environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, pressure along with altitude
is collected by sensors. The microcontrollers take actions if predetermined values are
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exceeded. In IoT based systems, these data are uploaded to the web server. Users can,
therefore, access real time data from any device. This may be in the format of
applications or web browsers. The solution is to set up and encourage the use of
personal weather stations or DIY monitoring systems to know these conditions in the
environment. With the advance of technology, it is now feasible to build such systems
and can include many different sensors to measure these conditions since sensors
become available at the low prices with a good accuracy and range.

1.2. Block Diagram for Environmental Measuring and Monitoring via Web
The proposed environmental measuring and monitoring system using Arduino
and ESP 8266 also consists of three parts. Since the system measures the
environmental parameters, sensors used to measure them are input devices.
Parameters are temperature and humidity, atmospheric pressure, ultraviolet (UV)
intensity, and the concentration of CO to be measured. Arduino Mega is used in this
system. The output to indicate the status of these environmental parameters in this
system is in the form of LCD display, and indicator LEDs. Webserver helps these data
viewable on the mobile devices. Therefore, the whole system can be overviewed to be
the one as shown in Figure 1.1.

LCD display

Viewable
LCD driver module
devices

Temperature
E SP 8266

Humidity
A rd u ino M ega

ATM Pressure

LEDs
CO sensor

UV sensor
Cooling Fan

12 V Power Supply

Figure 1.1. Block Diagram of Environmental Measuring and Monitoring via Web
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1.3. Aim and Objectives

The aim of this thesis is to build a low cost environmental measuring and
monitoring system using Arduino and ESP8266 web server which can be applied in
real life. The objectives of the thesis are as follows:
1. To study the background theory of environmental monitoring systems
2. To study how sensors works, including other components
3. To study how Arduino can be programmed to obtain the desired applications
4. To study and learn the embedded software in the Arduino
5. To learn the C programming language to implement the whole system

1.4. Implementation Program

The implementation program of the environmental measuring and monitoring
system are as follows:
1. To interface environmental sensors to the microcontroller
2. To develop program for reading sensor data
3. To interface the microcontroller to the server for hosting data
4. To develop program for sending data to webserver
5. To program the web server so that these data can be viewed on mobile devices

1.5. Scope of the thesis

The scope of the mini thesis is limited to certain environmental sensors, which
are manufactured for use with Arduino and microcontrollers. The accuracy of these
sensors should not be compared to those sensors designed to handle extreme
environmental conditions or have better range of sensitivity. In this thesis, only five
environmental parameters are used to test: temperature, pressure, humidity, UV and
CO. Concerned with programming, studying the program is limited to be able to write
program using given interfacing libraries.

1.6. Outlines of the thesis

There are five chapters in this thesis book, the chapter one overviews the
system and the trend of the thesis. The chapter two provides outcomes of doing
background research of theories and principles used in constructing the system for
testing environmental data. The chapter three includes implementation steps for
building the prototype of the proposed system. The chapter four includes tests and
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results of the constructed system. The chapter five states the development stages of
the mini thesis work as well as describe the potential these systems in practical
situations.