Chapter 4. Monitoring the Atmosphere Using Sensors

It is highly unlikely to find an equipment without sensors nowadays. Most appliances, such as air conditioners, smoke detectors, fire detectors, gas/CO2 sensors, LCD displays, refrigerators, toasters, thermostats, microwave ovens, and geysers installed in our house have sensors integrated in their circuits to measure surrounding atmospheric entities. When we take a look at our surrounding atmosphere, there are so many entities that can be measured, for example, temperature, humidity, vapor, dust, air quality, various gas levels, wind speed, rain, water quality, light (natural and artificial), presence, motion, moisture, and so on. On a broader level, technologies such as sensor networks and the Internet of Things uses "sensor nodes" that measure one or multiple of these entities and send data to the intended computer or user. The best example of this is the "nest" thermostat (www.nest.com/thermostat/). This...