Design and Development of Air Temperature
and Relative Humidity Monitoring System With
AVR Processor Based Web Server
Mitar Simić
NORTH Point Ltd, Member of the NORTH Group
Trg Cara Jovana Nenada 15/8, 24000 Subotica
Republic of Serbia
mitarsimic@yahoo.com
Abstract — In this paper improved design of previously
developed system for temperature and relative humidity
measurement and data acquisition is described. Hardware of
the system is extended with Arduino Uno and Ethernet
Shield boards. SHT11 sensor is used for obtaining
information about air temperature and relative humidity.
Storing the results is on the micro SD card in CSV file. Main
software improvement is adding of embedded Web server
which enables immediate access to sensor readings through
Internet. The designed system is tested under different
conditions and in all tests the system worked stable and
accurately.
Keywords — data acquisition, microcontroller, relative
humidity, temperature, sensors, web-server.
I. INTRODUCTION
The weather or climate plays an important role in
human life. The thermal comfort of human being is known
to be influenced mostly by air temperature, humidity,
radiation, activity level, air flow and clothing thermal
resistance [1].
Indoor air quality is a concern for energy and
environmental researchers as well as consumers. Humans
spend up to 90 percent of time indoors in winter, so it is
very useful to know that things like carpeting and furniture
can improve quality of indoor environment. Recently
many homeowners have added vapor barriers, insulation,
weather stripping and caulk to their homes to effectively
retain desired air temperature and reduce outdoor air
infiltration [2]. Indoor temperature conditions and
moisture were measured and analyzed for more than 40
homes in different climate regions of the United States [3].
Monitoring of environmental parameters is very
important in various applications and industrial processes.
Researchers all over the world are trying to monitor the
environmental parameters of temperature, humidity and
pollutant gases more precisely in real time. For example,
in [4] systems for monitoring temperature, humidity, and
airflow in data centers are presented. Various design and
application of data loggers for similar purposes can be
found in literature [5-12].
This work was financially supported by European Commission in the
framework of the FP7 project SENSEIVER, grant number 289481.
In [13] authors described impact of relative humidity
and temperature on books stored in library. They presented
the wireless system which can remotely measure and
control relative humidity and temperature of library in real
time.
In greenhouses, maintaining a higher internal as
compared with external temperature can produce better
growing conditions. A computer-based system which
provides control, coordination and visualization of
humidity and temperature in a greenhouse was presented
in [14].
In [15] the results of experiments in exposure chamber
to determine the effects of different ambient air
temperature and relatively humidity on the performances
of passive diffusive samplers for measuring nitrogen
dioxide (NO2) in the outdoor environment are presented.
Monitoring and control of temperature and relative
humidity is also very important for storing and
transportation of medicinal products [16].
Based on applications of described systems it is
obviously that development of reliable relative humidity
and temperature measurement system with data acquisition
is very important and has wide range of application in
industrial and nonindustrial applications. Various
temperature and relative humidity data loggers are
available on the market with main characteristics: small
dimensions and power consumption, wide measurement
ranges, adjustable sampling time between readings, the
ability to hold readings and display maximum and
minimum readings, storing results on removable disks,
Windows software (optional), etc.
From the beginning monitoring systems have request
for remote access to measured values. In last decade, the
most common way of remote access became
microcontroller which runs a embedded web server and
user has access to sensor readings through Internet. More
can be found in [17]-[24]. Some solutions as [25] are
commercial products with a much higher price than system
proposed in this paper.
Main aim of this work is embedding a PC based web
server into the microcontroller with temperature and
relative humidity measurement in low-cost but reliable
system. System presents redesign of system reported
earlier [26]. All good features of previously developed
system are implemented with optimization regarding
dimensions and power consumption.
 II. EMBEDDED WEB SERVER
At the beginning, general web servers were developed
for general-purpose computers. They typically require a
fast processor, huge amount of memory and other
resources. Microcontroller based control systems also have
a request for remote access to the device from a web
browser but limitations of available resources in that kind
of systems, brought to the development of special type of
web server, called an Embedded Web Server [27].
An embedded web server is a microcontroller that
contains an Internet software suite as well as application
code for monitoring and controlling systems. Embedded
web servers are integral part of an embedded network and
paves way for faster time to market products [27].
Figure 1. shows typical embedded web server
architecture [27].
Figure 1. Embedded Web Server Architecture
III. DEVICE STRUCTURE
Proposed structure of device for measurement and data
acquisition of temperature and relative humidity with
built-in web server is presented in Figure 2.
System consists of three boards: Control board, Arduino
Uno and Arduino Ethernet Shield board, and measuring
device - sensor SHT11.
The hardware of control board has been built around a
microcontroller (AVR ATmega128 [28]) that interfaces
with user via a display and a keyboard. The
microcontroller is used with a supply voltage of 5 V and
an external quartz crystal of 16 MHz. Other parts of
control board are micro SD card, real time clock DS1307
[29] and LCD. Alphanumeric LCD is used for displaying
results and configuration on the field.
Real time clock DS1307 with backup battery is used to
provide time measuring. Time and date values are used for
presentation on display and for additional information for
every result in report on micro SD card. These values are
also sent to web page with results of measurement.
Keyboard with two navigation and two confirmation
keys is connected to the control board to ensure easy
manipulation through menu system for configuration and
measurements. Menu system is based on finite state
machine and it can be accessed by external keyboard with
two navigation keys (Up and Down) and two confirmation
keys (OK and Esc). Device also has an ON/OFF key for
turning on and turning off device (toggle operation).
Ethernet Arduino Ethernet
Shield Board
Arduino
Internet Uno Board
ATmega128 SHT11
LCD RTC
uSD
Keyboard
Control Board
Figure 2. Block scheme of the system
Sensor device SHT11 [30] is attached directly to the
microcontroller ATmega128. SHT11 is a Sensirion’s
family of surface mountable temperature and relative
humidity sensors. The sensors integrate sensor elements
plus signal processing and provide a digital output. No
additional calibration is needed. Relative humidity is
measured by capacitive sensor element while band-gap
sensor is used for temperature measurement. The SHT11
has operating range of temperature between -40 and
+123.8 °C and range for relative humidity between 0 and
100 %RH.
Measured values of relative humidity and temperature
are stored on 2 GB micro SD card. FAT16 file system is
used to allow manipulation of file with results on PC and
off-line processing. The main advantage for using a micro
SD card as data storage system is the ease of transferring
data directly to other electronic devices which support the
FAT format as a file system.
Device also has three LEDs for signalization of regular
(green LED) and critical conditions (two red LEDs for low
and high alarm).
A prototype hardware outcome of Control board with
attached SHT11 sensor is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. A prototype hardware outcome of Control
board with connected SHT11 sensor
Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the
ATmega328. It has 14 digital input/output pins, 6 analog
inputs, a USB connection, a power jack, a 16 MHz
ceramic resonator and a reset button [31].
The Arduino Ethernet Shield allows an Arduino board
to connect to the internet. It is based on the Wiznet W5100
Ethernet chip. The Wiznet W5100 provides a network (IP)
stack capable of both TCP and UDP. It supports up to four
simultaneous socket connections [32].
 The Arduino Uno (a) and Ethernet Shield (b) boards are
presented in Figure 4.
(a) (b)
Figure 4. (a) Arduino Uno board (b) Arduino Ethernet
Shield board
PC browser view of the SENSEIVER [33] data logger
web page is shown in Figure 5. Date, time, relative
humidity and temperature are presented. Default value for
refresh time is 5 seconds. It is planned that in next revision
of the system refresh time of web page can be adjustable
regardless sampling time of measurements.
Figure 5. Browser view of the SENSEIVER data logger
web page
A prototype hardware outcome of complete system is
shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Hardware outcome of device for temperature
and relative humidity monitoring with embedded web
server
System is also successfully tested with access via
mobile phone as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7. Testing of the system with mobile phone
Mobile phone browser view of the SENSEIVER data
logger web page is shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Mobile phone browser view of the SENSEIVER
data logger web page
System described in this paper also can be used as
standalone device without connection with embedded web
server. In both cases, device can be used in two modes for
data collecting: continuous and manual. In continuous
mode, the device collects data from sensor automatically
with defined sampling time and stores it on micro SD card.
In manual mode, the user has an option to manually
choose the moment of recording the results. More details
about implemented options can be found in [26], where
results of comparison with commercial temperature and
relative humidity data logger are presented.
As reliability test of redesigned system, during more
than 7 hours indoor temperature and relative humidity
were monitored. Sampling time was set to 2 seconds so
more than 8600 samples were stored. Size of generated
report is 319 kB. Offline processing of generated report
can be easily performed and curves of temperature and
relative humidity changes are presented in Figure 9.
40
Temperature [°C]
38 Relative Humidity [%RH]
36
34
32
30
28
26
24
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
Sample
Figure 9. Curves of indoor temperature and relative
humidity changes during more than 7 hours
 IV. CONCLUSION
The main task in this study was to provide remote
access to the sensor readings as upgrade of the previously
developed monitoring system. Remote access was
accomplished with web server embedded in AVR
microcontroller placed on additional board which is
connected with serial interface to previously developed
system. Obtained system is low-cost but it has most of the
features available at commercial devices.
The future plans of this work are to improve the
functionalities of measuring and data acquisition system
with adding new hardware and software features.
Software expansion can be done with adding online
analysis through Internet with graphs and database
capabilities available on the web page.
Various types of sensors (pressure, different gas
sensors, etc.) can be attached to the Control Board via
appropriate transducer circuit to ensure more information
about environment parameters and indoor/outdoor air
quality.
REFERENCES
[1] ISO 7730, 1984.
[2] Humidity & the indoor environment, Center Point Energy.
[3] A. Rudd, H. I. Henderson, “Monitored Indoor Moisture and
Temperature Conditions in Humid-Climate US Residences”,
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning
Engineers, Volume 113, Part 1.
[4] FLUKE, “Monitoring temperature, humidity, and airflow in data
centers”, Application Note.
[5] C. Coopmans, Ch. YangQuan, “A General-Purpose Low-Cost
Compact Spatial-Temporal Data Logger and Its applications”,
2008, IEEE AUTOTESCON, pp. 64-68.
[6] L. Rajesh, X. G. Robert, “Design and Realization of a Portable Data
Logger for Physiological Sensing, IEEE Trans. on Instrumentation
and Measurement”, vol, 52, no. 4, 2003, pp. 1289-1295.
[7] M. Moghavvemi, M.O. Faruque, E. Ngkoon, Ch.Y. Soo, “A Simple
Low Cost Data Acquisition System for Remote Sensing of Relative
Humidity and Temperature”, Proceedings of the 44th IEEE, 2001,
pp. 202-206.
[8] R. Robert Dedrick, John D. Halfman, D. Brooks McKinney. "An
Inexpensive, Microprocessor-Based, Data Logging System".
Technical report, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, November
1999.
[9] V.K. Sehgal, Nitin, D.S. Chauhan, R. Sharma, ”Smart Wireless
Temperature Data Logger Using IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee Protocol”,
IEEE Region 10 Conference TENCON 2008, pp. 1-6.
[10] M. Sahoo, “An Approach to LabVIEW Based Temperature &
Relative Humidity Monitoring System”, ACEEE Int. J. on Control
System and Instrumentation, Vol. 03, No. 02, March 2012.
[11] P. Thanutong, D. Thanapatay, K. Kaemarungsi and T. Isshiki,
“Implementation of Low Cost Data Logger Using Flash Disk with
File Allocation Table”, available on
http://gis.eng.ku.ac.th/Research/paper_ImplementationofLowCostD
ataLogger.pdf (accessed on 4th March 2014).
[12] M.B. Waghmare, P. N. Chatur, “Temperature and Humidity
Analysis using Data Logger of Data Acquisition System: An
Approach”, International Journal of Emerging Technology and
Advanced Engineering, Volume 2, Issue 1, January 2012.
[13] N. Li, Y. Tang, “Library Temperature and Humidity Remote
Control System Based on Micro Controller Unit”, Proceedings of
the 2nd International Conference on Computer Science and
Electronics Engineering (ICCSEE 2013.
[14] M. Omid, A. Shafaei, “Temperature and relative humidity changes
inside greenhouse”, Int. Agrophysics, Vol. 19, pp. 153-158, 2005.
[15] V. Šerevičienė, D. Paliulis, “Influence of Temperature and Relative
Humidity on the Performance of Nitrogen Dioxide Diffusive
Sampler”, Research Journal of Chemical Sciences, Vol. 2(5), 89-92,
May 2012.
[16] T. H. Khan, K. A Wahid, “An advanced physiological data logger
for medical imaging applications”, URASIP Journal on Embedded
Systems 2012.
[17] K. Samalekas, E. Logaras, E. S. Manolakos, “Embedded Web
Server for the AVR Butterfly Enabling Immediate Access to
Wireless Sensor Node Readings”, SENSAPPEAL 2009, LNICST
29, pp. 145–158, 2010.
[18] T.Tan, “Embedded ATMEL HTTP Server”, Master thesis, Cornell
University, 2004.
[19] Temperature and humidity measurements with the AVR web-
server, available on http://tuxgraphics.org/electronics (accessed on
4th March 2014).
[20] I. Hariyale, V. Gulhane, “Development of an Embedded Web
Server System for Controlling and Monitoring of Remote Devices
Based on ARM and Win CE”, International Journal of Recent
Technology and Engineering (IJRTE), Volume 1, Issue 2, June
2012.
[21] S. Sunny, M. Roopa, “Data Acquisition and Control System Using
Embedded Web Server”, International Journal of Engineering
Trends and Technology- Volume 3 Issue 3, 2012.
[22] I. Hariyale, V. A. Gulhane, “Development of an Embedded Web
Server System for Controlling and Monitoring of Remote Devices”,
2nd National Conference on Information and Communication
Technology (NCICT), 2011
[23] M. C. Filibeli, O. Ozkasap, M. R. Civanlar, “Embedded web server-
based home appliance networks”, Journal of Network and
Computer Applications 30 (2007) 499–514.
[24] V. Mishra, “AVR microcontroller based web server”, Master thesis,
Cochin University of Science and Technology, 2009.
[25] www.embeddedmarket.com
[26] M. Simic, “Microcontroller Based System for Measuring and Data
Acquisition of Air Relative Humidity and Temperature”, 37th
International Conference of IMAPS-CPMT Poland, Krakow, 22-25
September 2013.
[27] V. B. R. Roy, S. Dessai, S. G. S. P. Yadav, “Design and
Development of ARM Processor Based Web Server”, International
Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 4, May 2009.
[28] AVR ATmega128, Datasheet, Available on www.atmel.com
[29] DS1307, Datasheet, Available on www.maximintegrated.com
[30] SHT11, Datasheet, Available on www.sensirion.com
[31] http://arduino.cc/en/Main/arduinoBoardUno
[32] http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoEthernetShield#.UzAKHM7B3_
g
[33] www.senseiver.com