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Home > Case Studies > Case Study - Weather Station
Case
Study - Weather Station
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Business case
A Queensland mining company was aerating the water in a tailings dam to
increase the evaporation rate of the dam. There were two issues
to address. When the:
a) humidity was high, or the temperature was low, there is little or no benefit from aerating the tailings.
b) wind speed was high the tailings were spraying out of the tailings dam, and also onto neighbouring properties.
The solution was to control the pumping station and stop aerating at unsuitable times.
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The product
A
weather station was developed to monitor windspeed, temperature,
and humidity. This information was used to control a pumping
station for a
tailings dam. When the temperature is low, the humidity is low, or the wind
speed is high, the pump is turned off. The weather
station also
periodically reported information via a satellite uplink back to a
central computer.
The product in detail
The weather station was developed around a microprocessor based single
board computer from Rabbit Semiconductor, the LP3500 fox. A wind speed
sensor, electronic humidity sensor and air temperature gauge with digital
outputs connected to digital inputs on the LP3500.
Satellite communications used a DMR200 manufactured by Skywave in
Canada. The DMR200 transceiver uses the Inmarsat satellite system D+
service to transfer the data from the weather station.
The weather station was powered by a rechargeable sealed lead acid battery and recharged daily using a solar panel.
LP3500 fox single board computer
Our involvement in the project
Our contribution to the project was the embedded software for the LP3500 fox single board computer.
Digital
outputs
from the temperature, humidity and air temperature sensors connected to
the LP3500. The number of pulses per second was directly related
to
the current measurement value. The temperature, humidity and air
temperatures were updated every second and a running average of 10
readings was calculated to smooth out any variability in the data.
This information was formatted into packets and transferred to the DMR200 satellite terminal as required.
The
motor/pump unit at the pumping station was controlled by a contactor
which was switched on and off using a relay on the LP3500.
For more information
about the LP3500 click here
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Bear Technologies Pty Ltd, Electronic Engineers, Brisbane QLD Australia. Bear Technology.
International service including Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin.
Electronic engineering product development service, electronics design company,
control system design, electronic development and embedded design services.
Last updated July 2008. Copyright © company. All rights reserved.
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