Developing and Testing of a Hardware and Software Complex with a Web Interface for Displaying Local Meteorological Monitoring Data

Introduction. The implementation of automated weather stations facilitated by Internet of Things (IoT) technologies represents a significant advancement in smart agriculture. Modern web services and applications using the data of IoT-based automated weather stations provide users with representative meteorological data on climatic conditions in real time to enhance the field operations management and reduce risks from changing in meteorological conditions. An important aspect of collecting and analyzing up-to-date meteorological information is the development of user-friendly interfaces. Aim of the Study. The study is aimed at developing and testing a hardware-software complex with a web interface for displaying local meteorological monitoring data with the frequency of data displaying at least once per hour. Materials and Methods. The study employs modern web development tool – ASP.NET Core MVC platform to achieve the target tasks. There has been developed an experimental prototype of the low-cost IoT automated weather station to collect data on local weather conditions during the growing season. There has been also developed the hardware and software architecture of the IoT automated weather station. The Raspberry Pi Zero microcomputer provides execution of scripts for polling a multi-channel combined weather sensor in the Java programming language for recording in a local and remote PostgreSQL database management system. The graphs of local weather parameters dynamics have been implemented based on the ApexCharts JavaScript library. In the field conditions, there have been studied the energy consumption and battery charge dynamics of the IoT automated weather station from a solar panel. Results. The algorithm for information retrieval from a database and displaying graphs and tables on a website using a web application has been developed and tested. The key code blocks with comments are presented, and an algorithm for deploying a web application on the Internet is described. A frontend for a web application for visualizing IoT automated weather station data has been developed. The dynamics of meteorological conditions obtained by the IoT automated weather station are presented, and the results of comparing individual indicators with data from open sources are presented. The web application has been tested and deployed on a hardware server with Internet access. This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent advancements in smart weather stations; a comparative analysis of software technologies for real-time weather monitoring data visualization is conducted. Discussion and Conclusion. The results of field tests of the IoT automated weather station and web application in 2024 showed high system performance, minimal delays under adverse environmental conditions (heavy rain, wind, low and high temperatures), stable database filling and display of weather conditions graphs on the website. The developed IoT automated weather station, built on a modular principle, with a combined weather sensor, is more compact and cost-effective compared to ready-made solutions existing on the market. Continuous information flow and open hardware architecture ensures the autonomy of the system due to battery recharging from a solar panel and a sleep mode algorithm. In the future, it is planned to calibrate the combined sensor in laboratory conditions to improve the accuracy of readings, or replace the combined sensor with classic mechanical sensors with minor changes in the hardware and software platform. To work with dynamic models of the production process, it is planned to add an interface and field sensors to the system.