Condition Monitoring and Reporting Framework for Wireless Sensor Network-based Automatic Weather Stations

Automatic Weather Stations (AWSs) consist of sensors that automatically collect and transmit weather data. AWS efficiency is achieved if the amount of down time is minimized. Keeping track of AWS status is a daunting task, aggravated by increase in the observation network density. The purpose of this paper is to present a condition monitoring and reporting framework which relies on AWS sensor data to establish AWS health. The framework consists of four major components including a data receiver, analyser, problem classifier and reporter. On receiving the sensor data including input voltage, date and weather data, the analyser determines if there is a problem while the classifier uses a decision table to determine the probable cause of the problem. Based on the identified problems, the reporter logs each problem in a database and sends an SMS or email to the concerned person. Sending an SMS or email is performed on new problems or on problems not attended to within 24 hours in order to minimize the number of reports.