On the Use of In-Vehicle Sensors for Weather Data Collection and Mapping

TLDR: This study aimed to construct a weather data collection and mapping system for local weather monitoring and agricultural decision-making with spatiotemporal capability by integrating weather sensors to vehicles and serves as an innovation from the traditional fixed weather stations.

Abstract: The erratic changes in the current weather and climate bring challenges to the agricultural sector. Monitoring the weather is important to make wise decisions in order to increase crop productivity. With limited data, farmers rely on national weather agencies for weather information that provides region wide forecasts and are not local and agriculture specific. In order to have insights on the effects of these changes, weather monitoring becomes a necessity. However, weather stations which were deployed in fixed locations do not provide granular local weather data. The rapid development of sensors has led to their integration to a diverse range of devices that can give us tools to address significant challenges of our living environment. This study aimed to construct a weather data collection and mapping system for local weather monitoring and agricultural decision-making with spatiotemporal capability by integrating weather sensors to vehicles. This serves as an innovation from the traditional fixed weather stations in order to collect data with spatiotemporal variances to support the farmers need for local weather information. The weather data with visualization and corresponding indications and recommendations was made available in the website for online public access while a local database was also provided. The researchers conducted the gathering of data in Santa Barbara, Iloilo, Philippines.