Arduino data loggers: A helping hand in physical geography

Abstract

Microcontrollers such as Arduino have been increasingly used by researchers to create and customise their own tools. In geography, microcontrollers are frequently used to design data loggers for monitoring purposes. We reviewed the use of Arduino in physical geography to unravel the opportunities and challenges of using off‐the‐shelf tools in research. We conducted a literature review, putting the retrieved information in perspective with our experimental work in mountainous and riverine landscapes in Chile and Peru. We show that the low cost and versatility of Do It Yourself (DIY) data loggers open research opportunities, extending the range of application of their expensive commercial counterparts. The possibility of connecting Arduino to a wide range of sensors, actuators, and wireless communication devices has helped to monitor rivers, glaciers, lakes, ice‐waves, caves, and landslides, improving the temporal and spatial resolution of data collected in critical environments. Low‐cost sensors have been extensively compared against expensive alternatives with good results, although they require thorough testing before field deployment due to the common existence of defective equipment. Building research equipment has several challenges. DIY data loggers might not be unconditionally accepted by environmental agencies, partially restricting their use to educational and research purposes. Failures in data loggers can be difficult to track, since they might be related to coding, electronic assemblage, or inadequate housing to withstand outdoor use. Yet, Arduino‐based data loggers have helped scientists around the world in different stages of their career, especially in scarcely funded research endeavours. Arduino has boosted creativity and resourcefulness, paving the way for innovative monitoring strategies in physical geography.

IoT on an ESP32: Optimization Methods Regarding Battery Life and Write Speed to an SD-Card

“…Depending on the architecture of the microcontroller, certain processor parts or peripheral components are clocked down, the operating voltage is lowered or even disconnected from the power supply. This results in the following rules for energy-efficient programming [5,6]:…”

“…Like us, many other research teams want to take data acquisition into their own hands and develop specially adapted instruments [5,6]. It is also possible to describe exactly and transparently which algorithms were used to increase the reproducibility of the results.…”

Reliability Testing of a Low-Cost, Multi-Purpose Arduino-Based Data Logger Deployed in Several Applications Such as Outdoor Air Quality, Human Activity, Motion, and Exhaust Gas Monitoring

“…Low-cost, open-source hardware such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi has found its way into the scientific community for quite some time [5]. This can be seen in the many scientific publications that make use of this technology [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. For example, they are used in agriculture and livestock farming [14][15][16], to monitor the irrigation of crops [17], the respiration rate of fruits and vegetables [18], the emission of methane from animals [19,20], change of water level during tides [21], water analysis [22], urban heat islands [23], etc.…”