Applications
The areas in which the Etherlog 3000 can provide a data acquisition solution are limited only by the imagination. To get you started this page describes three applications using the boxed Etherlog 3000, the Etherlog data acquisition module and the RDL 3000 circuit board respectively.
The Ethermet weather station
Climate monitoring is a key requirement for a whole range of users:- monitoring wind conditions near potential pollution sources
- evaporo-transpiration and crop disease prediction in horticultural applications
- energy targetting in buildings with real weather data
The nature of these applications often requires that a weather
station be placed in an inaccessible location, and in this situation the
radio communications provided by the Etherlog can be invaluable.
The programmability of the logger allows measurements to be processed on-line,
before they are recorded. Maximum, minimum and average temperatures over any
period can be stored, or individual wind gusts can be recorded.
Radio alarms can be used to signal to a host PC when conditions become critical.
The Ethermet weather station consists of a series of carefully chosen sensors which can be interfaced directly to the boxed Etherlog 3000 logger to measure:
- air temperature
- ground temperature
- relative humidity
- barometric pressure
- wind speed and direction
- incident radiation levels
- rainfall
- soil moisture content
- surface wetness
Monitoring the internal environment
The Energy Monitoring Company
specialises in measuring the energy performance of buildings.
As part of this the company routinely measures key comfort variables
(air temperature, globe temperature, humidity and air velocity)
at many points throughout a building.
Their existing equipment used individual data loggers to measure each parameter at, typically, 20 points in a building. It is often impractical to make any sort of physical connection to so many stations, particularly in a busy office environment, and so data was recovered by visiting each station in turn and downloading to a laptop computer - a time consuming process.
It proved straighforward to interface their existing sensors to an Etherlog data acquisition module. As well as the obvious advantages of radio communications the programmability of the Etherlog now allows the power hungry air velocity sensor to be switched off outside office hours, increasing battery life by a factor of three.
Other developments will include a compact host PC which can be placed in the building under investigation and then accessed using a telephone connection to download data from all the stations in that building.
The model shown in the picture contains a GSM modem for communication with remote host computers. The power requirements of the GSM module require the data logger module to be mains powered.
The Streetbox urban pollution monitor
Urban air pollution needs to be measured close to its source - typically
beside busy roads. Equipment is often attached to lamp posts or other street
furniture. Apart from the obvious advantage of convenience, remote data
collection avoids drawing attention to equipment installed in public places.
In view of these requirements Learian Environmental chose to use the RDL3000 circuit board from the Radio Data Logger Company in their portable Streetbox pollution monitor. The combination of Learian's pollution sensing expertise and support from the Radio Data Logger Company ensured rapid development of the first working prototype.
During the early stages of product development and proving Learian used the standard Etherlog host PC software. As interest in their product grew they set about creating their own customised Windows interface, using communications software modules supplied by the Radio Data Logger Company as part of their OEM agreement.