Design of the low cost micro-climate station based on LabVIEW

Abstract

The objective of this research is to develop a small and low-cost weather station. The station will be wireless, transmit and receive data via radio signals. The 45mW solar cell will be used as a solar irradiance sensor which is very expensive for the weather station, and the PIC18F97J60 controller will control the transmitter and receiver system. Moreover, the author has developed the weather monitoring software by using LabVIEW. After testing the measurement percentage errors with the reference weather station, the results showed that the relative humidity measurement error is equal to 3.106%, the temperature measurement error is equal to 0.685%, the wind speed is about 4.527%, the wind direction measurement error is equal to 5.236%, and the solar irradiance measurement error is equal to 0.501%. The longest working distance between the weather sensor and receiver unit is equal to 145 meters.