A Data Acquisition System Based on Raspberry Pi:

Design, Construction and Evaluation

Alireza Akhoondi Asadi*, Shahriar Bagheri*, Ahmed Imam*, Ehsan Jalayeri*, Witold Kinsner t and
Nariman Sepehri*
*Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
t Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Manitoba, 75A Chancellors Circle, Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6
Email: akhoonda@myumanitoba.ca

Abstract- This paper presents the construction of a low-cost
data acquisition system (DAS) prototype based on Raspberry
Pi-2 microcomputer. The prototype is designed to operate as a
standalone system without the need for an additional personal
computer (PC). It performs the data acquisition, online plotting
and data logging, simultaneously. This is a general-purpose setup,
as it is capable of reading any analog sensor giving output in the
designed range, or through appropriate signal conditioning. The
system is tested in a Mechanical laboratory by collecting data
which are compared to a benchmark DAS. Statistical analyses
are also performed on the acquired data. It is proved that both
signals are identical with only minor differences.
Keywords- Data Acquisition System, Prototype, Raspberry Pi
I. INTRODUCTION
Data collection and storage are an integral part of a day-
to-day laboratory work. Researchers and engineers need to
constantly monitor machines and systems through series of
sensor information. The information is often visualized as
graph and/or chart. In order to acquire data from any source,
a data acquisition system (DAS) is required. Although DAS
boards come in variety of models and capabilities, most com-
mercially available DASs have at least one of the following
two main features: they sketch an online graph of the signal,
and they store data samples for post experiment analysis.
Choosing a DAS board to select is application dependent.
For example, many applications require high resolution analog
to digital conversion (ADC), while other applications might
require high sampling rate. In such cases one should look for
DAS board that offers such capabilities.
The idea of using microprocessors for data acquisition has
been around for sometime. For instance, back in the 1990,
authors in [1] propose a data acquisition system designed
specifically for photo voltaic (PV) systems. Authors propose a
microsystem architecture based on MC68B09 microprocessor
which is capable of data collection and analysis. The data
collection in [1] is in real-time and through RS232 serial
interface.
Much has changed since the 1990. During the past few
years, several low-cost embedded platforms entered the elec-
tronics market. Most of these platforms are open-source and
easy to program and operate. This fact made these systems
popular among the scientific community. In [2], a DAS board
is developed based on ARM-Cortex microcontroller. The mi-
crocontroller is connected to a PC equipped with LabView
through TCPIIP protocol. In [3], AVR-based data acquisition
board was designed. More recent literature ([4] and [5]) focus
on designing DAS for specific applications. In [4], the popular
Raspberry Pi microcomputer was used as a LAN server to
receive and update patient data in a hospital scenario. Further,
in [5], Raspberry Pi was used as a portable very low frequency
(VLF) data logger.
This work is different from the above mentioned studies and
is not designed to compete with any high quality DAS. Pro-
posed design is a compact, portable standalone system, that is,
no PC is required for data storage or manipulation. Therefore,
the overall cost of the prototype is reduced. Cost, is considered
an important factor since the targets of the proposed DAS are
small-scale industries and academic research laboratories.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section II
describes the system architecture with brief overview of the
Raspberry Pi microcomputer. Section III presents the experi-
mental test that was performed to validate the functionality of
the system. A comprehensive statistical analysis is performed
and results are presented in Section III-B. This is to ensure that
the quality and accuracy of the acquired data is comparable
to a benchmark DAS board. The benchmark, used in this
experiment, is the Quanser Q8 data acquisition device [6].
Finally, Section IV presents the highlights of this study.
II. PI-BASED DAS ARCHITECTURE
Typically, data acquisition process involves reading sensory
information from one or more sensors, converting obtained
data into digital form (ADC conversion), plotting and storing
information onto the memory. Several components of the data
acquisition process are illustrated in Fig. 1. Following, is the
explanation of how different components of Fig. 1 are selected
or designed for the proposed Pi-based DAS.
Analog sensors measure a physical quantity (e.g. temper-
ature, pressure) and generate a voltage proportional to the
quantity being measured. There are different types of sensors
with different output characteristics. Nevertheless, typical ana-
log sensors used in daily laboratory work generate an output
voltage between 0 to 10 V.

978-1-5090-0996-1/16/$3l.00 2016 IEEE

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 The analog voltage obtained from the sensor should be
converted to digital form. This is accomplished through an
analog to digital converter (ADC). There are different variety
of ADCs, available with different characteristics (resolution,
conversion speed, etc.). In this study, Arduino Mega2S60 is
used to perform the analog to digital conversion [7] . There are
two main reasons behind selecting Arduino Mega as the ADC
for this particular experiment. First, the Arduino Software
(Integrated Development Environment or IDE) provides an
easy-to-use platform to write, debug and compile programs
onto the microcontroller processor. Second, since Arduino
Mega is a microcontroller, it provides a suitable and flexible
platform for further improvements and modifications of the
designed DAS board. For instance, it would be possible to use
the PWM outputs of the Arduino and generate output PWM
signals for control applications.
This Arduino microcontroller runs on an ATmega2S60
microprocessor. The board has 16 analog inputs, 8 of which
are used in this experiment. Maximum resolution of the
Arduino ADC is lO-bits. However, 8-bit resolution conversion
is used here to digitize analog inputs. Moreover, ATmega2S60
uses successive approximation conversion. As a result, the
conversion time is deterministic and the converter consumes
less power than flash converters [8].
Once the AD conversion is done, digitized sensor data
should be transferred to the embedded computer, as was
shown in Fig. l. This data transmission could be accomplished
through number of different interfacing protocols. In this
study, inter-integrated circuit (12C) is selected as an interface
between the ADC and embedded computer. 12C is a type of
synchronous data transmission protocol, as it has a dedicated
transmission line for the clock [9]. 12C communication is
implemented bi-directionally with a master and a slave device
that communicate with each other through a serial clock line
(SCL) and serial data line (SDA). The slave device can send
an interrupt request to the master device, and the master device
establishes the communication using the SCL and SDA lines
[lO].
Fig. 1. Typical data acquisition process.
Finally, the heart of the proposed data acquisition board
is a Raspberry Pi-2 microcomputer [11]. This single-board
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computer has several features that are beneficial for a data
acquisition application. For example, Raspberry Pi is equipped
with a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) port. This
feature helpes develop a standalone system that is not depen-
dent on seperate personal computer (PC) for data visualization
(real-time plots). Furthermore, the Raspbian Operating System
(OS) [12], installed on Raspberry Pi, provides flexibility and
freedom of choice for the system developer to select desired
programming language.
As mentioned earlier, the 12C protocol requires a master
and a slave device. Here and in this prototype, Raspberry
Pi (defined as the master device), sends a request signal to
the Arduino Mega (defined as the slave device) to capture
sensor data, perform ADC, and send the digitized value back
to Raspberry Pi. An overview of the wiring diagram of the
proposed architecture is shown in Fig. 2.
III. EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION
A. Test Rig
In order to assess the developed Raspberry Pi-based DAS
a laboratory experiment was performed. The test involved
reading data from three pressure sensors (Kl pressure trans-
ducer developed by Ashcroft Inc. [l3]). Pressure sensors were
connected to an excavator machine shown in Fig. 3. Pressure
sensors are marked with yellow hallow circles. This experi-
mental test took place at the Fluid Power and Tele-Robotics
Research Laboratory, University of Manitoba. Both Quanser
Q8, and Pi-based DAS captured pressure data simultaneously.
The machine operated for approximately 5 minutes.
B. Result
Three pressure sensors mentioned earlier were connected
to the analog input of both the Pi-based DAS and Quanser
Q8. Quanser board samples the analog pressure signal with
the frequency of 100 samples per second (Sps). This results
in 30, 000 samples after five minutes. On the other hand,
Raspberry Pi DAS has lower sampling rate and samples the
input analog signal at 20 Sps, which results in 6, 000 samples.
It should be mentioned that (according to the Nyquist sampling
theorem), the highest frequency component, in this case, can
be up to lO Hz for the Pi-based DAS. This covers a wide range
of mechanical systems. However, Pi-based DAS is capable of
capturing higher frequencies by disabling the online plotting.
Table I compares important features of the Quanser Q-8
with the proposed Pi-based DAS. This table is filled with
information obtained from [6] and [14].
Results obtained for all three pressure sensors are illustrated
in Fig. 4 through Fig. 6.
It can be observed from these Figures that both the Quanser
signal, and Pi signal follow the same trend. However, in order
show that both signals are identical further statistical analysis
is required. Next section discusses the statistical analysis in
more details.
 Fig. 2. Wiring diagram of the proposed DAS.

Chamber One Pressure Sensor (P, ) Chamber Two Pressure Sensor (P,) 4.5
- Pi-based DAS
~ 4
--- Quanser 08 OAS
(;
if>
<::
Q)
3.5
CfJ
i£ ~ 3
"
if>
if>
Q)
"0
i£
Cl.
,e 2.5
<::
Display Unit c. OJ
E ro
::;; 2
"
Cl.
i

.. . "D"' I...... L~~~ ~. ' ' ..............

50 100 150 200 250 300
Time [s]

Analog Inputs Fig. 5. P2 pressure data.

. __________~~sy_b_e.!"~~!! ~~~ ________ _ 6 ,-----,-----,-----,-----~--r-=p~i-~

ba=
sed~D~
AS~
--- Quanser 08 DAS

Fig. 3. Experimental test setup. I

5 ,-----,------,------,------,---r-~p=
i-b=
as=
ed~D~
A~S~
4 .5 --- Quanser 0 8 DAS

~3 . 5

~ 3
.a
·15,2.5
ro
::;; 2 I o 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time [s]
1.5
Fig. 6. Pp pressure data.
0.5 " - - - - " - - - - - ' - - - - - ' - - - - - - ' - - - - - - ' - - - - - '
o 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time [s]

1 n=N
Fig. 4. PI pressure data.
J-l = N L
n= l
Xn (1)

C. Statistical Analysis
Initially, the first and second statistical moments are calcu- 0- 2 = (2)
lated for the complete data set; namely, mean (J-l) and variance
(0- 2 ). They can be calculated by (1) and (2), respectively [15] . Table II tabulates the mean and variance of the data for all
0- 2 shows how data is spread-out from mean. three pressure sensors.

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 Table I
COMPARISON BETWEEN PI- BASED AND QUA NSE R Q8 DAS

Item Raspberry-Pi Based DAS [11] Quanser Q8 [6]

Software/Hardware req uirement Does not require additional Software/Hardware Requires PC with Operating System (e.g. Windows, Linux)
Number of analog inputs 8 8
Number of analog outputs 0 8
Input voltage range 0 - 10 V ± 10 V
Max ADC resolution 10 bits 14 bits
ADC conversion time 13J.is to 260J.is ~ 4J.is

Table II 2 0.8
PI-B ASED AN D QUANSER Q8 DAS MEASUREMEN TS 1.8 Q)
c gO.6
~ 1.6 ro
Pressure sensor Pi-based DAS Quanser Q8 :2:1.4
"---- ~0.4
(T2 (T2
J.i J.i
1.2 0.2
PI 1.5399 0.6452 1.7165 0.7580 0 20 40 60 20 40 60
P2 1.1204 0.3394 1.2629 0.3778
Pp 1.6939 0.6044 1.8779 0.6774 1.2 3.4
VJ
VJ VJ
Q)
1 '00 3
c 0
3:
Ql
t
Vi 0.8
::J
Furthennore, third and forth statistical moments are calcu- ~ 2.6
lated through (3) and (4).
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
n=N Time [sl Time [sl

Skewness = N1 '~ x - f-L ]3

" [~ (3)
Fig. 8. Stationarity Calculation for the Pi-based DAS.
n=l

n=N
2
Kurtosis = 1- '~ x __
" [_n - f-L ]4 - 3 (4) c
Q)

N (Y ~ 1.8 ----........___- - -_______ g 0 .8

n=l
:2: 1.6 ""'- ro
~0.6
Figure 7 illustrates four statistical moments for data ob- 1.4 '---_ _ _ _ _ __
~ ~

tained from Quanser Q8 and Pi-based DAS. o 20 40 60 0 20 40 60

0.5 r - - - - - - - - - - - - , 3.5
4 l:l12 VJ
Q) '00
~
Q)
1 .@
::J
3
-'" ~
en 0.8 2.5

o 20 40 60 0 20 40 60 o 20 40 60 o 20 40 60
Time [sl Time [sl

30 Fig. 9. Stationarity Calculation for the Quanser Q8 DAS.

VJ
.~ 20
t
::J
~ 10
Another interesting characteristic of a discrete signal is the
60 0 20 40 60 Probability Mass Function (PMF). Therefore, PMF is also
Time [sl Time [sl studied here for both acquired signals. According to [17], when
skewness and kurtosis variations are relatively large, the so-
Fig. 7. Statistical moments of acquired data; solid line: Pi-based DAS, dashed
line: Quanser Q8 DAS. called Burr distribution can be a proper fit to the data. This is
the case for the acquired data as was shown in Fig. 7. Through
the study of histograms shown in Fig. 10, it is determined that
The concept of stationarity is important to further analyze
the distribution of both signals are Burr XII distribution given
any non-independent data. This is the basis for many data
by (5).
analysis methods [16]. The stationarity calculations for both
Pi-based and Quanser Q8 DAS are shown in Fig. 8 and Fig. x c- 1
9, respectively. As illustrated in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 , mean and f(x; c, k) = ck (1 + xc )k+l (5)
variance variations are less than 5%. Thus, the data is weakly
where parameters c and k are called shape parameters [17].
stationary.

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 [7] Arduino, 2016. Retrieved from Arduino at https://www.arduino.cc/.

ILl~~=~ :
Accessed: 2016-07-17.
[8] G. F. Gross Jr, "Deterministic successive approximation analog-to-digital
converter," Dec. 5 2000. US Patent 6,157,338.
[9] I. Susnea and M. Mitescu, Microcontrollers in practice, vol. 18. Springer
Science & Business Media, 2005.
[l0] Y.-J. Kim , "I2c communication system and method enabling bi-
Q5 1 1.5 2 Z5 3 15 4 4.5 5
directional communications," Jan. 4 2005. US Patent App. 111028,319.

rl ~. •
c
[11] Raspberry Pi , 2016. Retrieved from Raspberry Pi at
https://www.raspberrypi.orgl, Accessed: 2016-07-15.
[12] Raspbian OS, 2016. Retrieved from Raspbian at
https://www.raspbian.org/, Accessed: 2016-07-17.
[13] Ashcroft, 2016. Retrieved from Ashcroft at http://www.ashcroft.com/.
Accessed: 2016-07-17.
[l4] ATmega 2560, 2016. Retrieved from Atmel at
a:000.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 http://www.atmel.comldevices/ATMEGA2560.aspx?tab=overview,
Amplitude [V] Accessed: 2016-07-17.
[l5] J. C. Sprott, Chaos and time-series analysis, vol. 69. Oxford University
Fig. 10. Normalized Histogram and Probability Mass Function Comparison; Press Oxford, 2003.
solid line: Pi-based DAS, dashed line: Quanser Q8 DAS. [l6] G. Nason , "Stationary and non-stationary time series," Statistics in
Volcanology. Special Publications of IAVCEI, vol. 1, pp. 000- 000, 2006.
[17] P. R. Tadikamalla, "A look at the burr and related distributions," Inter-
national Statistical Review/Revue Internationale de Statistique, pp. 337-
IV. CONCLUDING REMARKS 344, 1980.
In this paper, an architecture of a Raspberry Pi-based data
acquisition prototype was described. The design aimed to
provide a cost efficient and reliable data acquisition solution,
targeting small-scale industries and research laboratories. Tests
were performed to assess the functionality of the device.
Furthermore, a comparison between the proposed Pi-based
DAS with Quanser Q8 DAS was provided. Results showed
that the Pi-based DAS is able to successfully plot pressure
sensors concurrently. Statistical analysis performed on both
Quanser and Pi signals showed that both signals are identical,
with minor differences. The Pi-based DAS sampling frequency
was, however, lower than Quanser Q8 DAS. This, might cause
problems, should this device is to be used for systems with
fast dynamics that require higher sampling frequency.

ACKNOWLEDGMEN T
Authors would like to thank Mr. Ali Maddahi, Ph.D student,
and Mr. Moosa Rafiq, MS.c. student in the Fluid Power and
Tele-Robotics Research Laboratory of University of Manitoba
for helping during the statistical analysis of data, and running
the test rig.
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