Title of Invention

"AN INTERNET-ACCESSIBLE REAL-TIME WEATHER INFORMATION SYSTEM "

Abstract

In the present invention there is provided an internet-accessible real-time weather information system, which comprises a plurality of geographically distributed remote weather stations, capable of capturing local weather parameters. Each of the said weather stations being connected to a plurality of region-wise weather servers. The said weather servers being connected to a plurality of spatially distributed client computers through a conventional hub and bridge and the world wide internet web. The invention is characterized in that the said weather stations being connected through weather station server interface to the weather servers and the said weather servers being connected through a client-server interface to a plurality of spatially distributed client computers having capability of connecting to the world wide internet web. The system of the present invention allows real-time accessibility to weather station data at sampling intervals of the order of a few milliseconds. Further, the system of the present invention has unique reporting capability, via. e-mail and voice mail to authorised users about the remote workstation instrumental health parameters and malfunctioning, to enable take preventive measures as and when required. The system of the present invention is platform independent.

Full Text

The present invention relates to an internet-accessible real-time weather information system. More particularly, this invention provides internet accessibility to a plurality of weather stations from spatially distributed geographical locations for collection of meteorological information for integration of weather data from different sources for real time applications pertaining to weather forecasting, storm surge prediction, air traffic control and so forth, for a plurality of applications such as:(i) issuing warning to fishermen; (ii) information to rescue operators and planners; (iii) prediction of air pollution dispersal and the like. In hitherto known weather stations, R. Arpino (in US patent # US4295139: Method for transmitting airport weather information, 1981) describes a method for providing real-time weather information about an airport to an aircraft, wherein the weather information signals are transmitted to the radio receiver on the aircraft whereby the real-time weather information signals are audibly reproduced to provide the pilot with temperature, wind speed, wind direction and barometric pressure information. However, this method/system is not applicable for a plurality of locations. In an alternate system, H.T. Ochs III and S.Q. Kidder (in "A forecasting / nowcasting system for remote field locations" in J. Atmos and Oceanic Technology, Vol. 6 (1), pp. 218-221 [1989] ) describes a weather information system which can be located anywhere that has access to standard telephone lines, wherein on-site computer capabilities allow rapid generation of a variety of up-to-date integrated and analyzed real-time meteorological products such as surface streamlines, divergence etc., specifically tailored to meet the requirements of forecasting and operational purposes by applied meteorologists. The on-site computer allows improved assimilation and coherent presentation of weather data. This also has limited applications and suffers from the limitation of general accessibility. In another system, M.M. Wolfson (in "The FLOWS automatic weather station network" in J. Atmos and Oceanic Technol., Vol. 6, pp. 307-326 [1989]) describes a network of weather stations for automated hazardous weather detection and wind shear events in airport terminal areas, without the need for telephone data lines. In this network, the stations transmit averaged meteorological variables at regularly timed intervals to Geostationary Environmental Satellites, which relay the data to earth where they are received by satellite ground stations. The primary advantages of collecting the data in this manner are that the weather station sites almost never have to be visited if they are working properly, the stations can be located in any type of terrain without line-of-site transmission problems, and the data can be utilized in real time for now-casting purposes. However, this system requires satellite ground stations and is not internet-web compatible. In an improved version, G.B. Simon and D. Wartofsky (in US patent # US5434565: Automatic weather monitoring and adaptive transmitting system, 1995) describe a device which generates weather advisories at airports in response to the weather conditions monitored by this device at the airport, and then periodically broadcasts the weather advisories to the pilots on a radio-frequency assigned to the airport, the device having a further capability to automatically change the length of the weather advisories in response to the broadcast traffic on the common traffic advisory channel. The limitation of these devices is that their scope is limited to a given airport, and data accessibility for general application is absent. In another device, R.H. Hoffman, Jr., A.R. Marino, and I.N. Hartman (in US patent # US 5390237: Weather information interface system, 1995) report a microprocessor-controlled real time weather information access and distribution system, which provides real time and simultaneous wide area access to many incoming callers, via telephone service, to continuously updated local weather information in human recognizable audio form from a large number of any desired geographically dispersed remote weather reporting station. However, this system is limited only to communication via telephone lines. F. J. Bartoli (in US patent # US5509295: Weather station device, 1996) has reported a simple device wherein a portable self-contained apparatus comprising of temperature-, pressure-, and humidity sensing-probes are attached to a microprocessor contained within the housing of the device for calculation of moistureless gas density, which was then used to derive a moistureless density altitude. A limitation of this device is that it lacked a remote communication facility. In a modified device W. A. Shelton (in US patent # US5568385: Software system for collecting and displaying weather information, 1996) has reported a multiple weather station system wherein weather parameters from several remote weather stations are received by a computer via conventional modem/telephone hookups to generate weather data screens of alphanumeric and graphic displays of weather data for broadcast to television viewers through conventional television delivery systems. An inherent limitation of this system is that it is a dedicated system, and caters only to television viewers. In a further development, Shelton et al.. (in US patent # US5848378: System for collecting and presenting real-time weather information on multiple media, 1.998) have described a system which provides for connectivity of weather stations to one or more base computers which can in turn provide data in the form of voice message to telephone callers. The drawback of these systems is that numerical data for computational purposes, and for real-time numerical processing of weather forecasting and numerical modeling applications, are not immediately available for real time use. In yet another meteorological system, A. Brown (in US patent # US5867805: Severe weather detector and alarm, 1999) has reported a weather station having voice synthesizing and recognition apparatus, and a radio transceiver for communicating with global weather reporting communications systems utilizing cellular communications. The drawback of this system is that it is merely a radio communication system wherein its data is accessible to only selected predetermined receiving stations. D. Ezekiel (in US patent # US5790977: Data acquisition from a remote instrument via the internet, 1998) has reported a method by which remote access is provided to the user of a remote host system, via a graphical user-interface within a World Wide Web [WWW] page, to an instrument which operates as a storage medium for control & data acquisition software (CDAS) and also as a server medium which functions as a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which forwards the CDAS to the host system via internet transfer over a dedicated network software socket, upon request, by processing GET & PUT commands, wherein the CDAS is run on the host computer as an application software within an internet browser, thereby controlling the data acquisition of the instrument and forwarding of the acquired data from the instrument to the remote host system, where the data is processed and further displayed in graphic form. Although the method is related to the use of Internet, it does not have real time accessibility of data at very fast sampling rate of the order of a few milliseconds and, therefore, is not suitable as a weather information system, which entails turbulence studies apart from other parameters of meteorological interest. Further, the system does not possess fast reporting capability, to the authorized users, about health parameters and malfunction, if any, of the instrument, a requirement which is vital during storm-surge or other weather-related calamities. The main object of the present invention is to provide an internet accessible real time weather information system which obviates the drawbacks as detailed above. Another object of the present invention is to provide global accessibility to real time weather information from a plurality of autonomous weather stations from geographically remote locations simultaneously to multiple users through internet connectivity, whilst offering multiple features such as platform independence, remote configuration and control, data base queries, graphical displays and multi-media presentation capability. Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an internet accessible real-time weather information system which will be useful for forecasting and faster updating of weather related calamities such as storm-surge events, thus enabling timely evacuation and initiate rescue operation. The novelty .and, inventive .steps of the internet accessible real-time weather information system of the present invention provides for global accessibility to weather information from a plurality of spatially distributed weather data platforms from a plurality of geographically remote locations to a plurality of internet-users including a plurality of meteorological organizations, thereby providing a means for dissemination of weather information on a global scale. The system of the present invention allows real-time accessibility to weather station data at sampling intervals of the order of a few milliseconds, which is hitherto not available in known weather systems. Further, the system of the present invention has unique reporting capability, via. e-mail and voice mail to authorised users about the remote workstation instrumental health parameters and malfunctioning, to enable take preventive measures as and when required. The system of the present invention is platform independent and such a system allowing global accessibility to weather data on real-time basis is hitherto not available. In the drawings accompanying this specification: Fig. 1 represents a block schematic, showing a conventional scheme of the prior art for communicating weather data from geographically remote weather platforms to specific centralised locations, which consists primarily of a plurality of weather platforms [1], [2], [3], [4], etc, electrically connected to interrogating & data receiving computers [5], [6], etc via telephone lines [7] or via cellular phone network comprising of modems [8], [9], etc and a tower [10], through wireless communication means, which in turn is connected to a receiving centre attached to a telephone exchange [11]. Fig. 2 represents a block schematic of the internet-accessible real-time weather information system of the present invention, which consists primarily of communicating weather data through a plurality of central servers [12.1] to [12.n] herein referred to as weather servers, located at a plurality of geographical regions from a plurality of remote weather stations [14.1] [14.n] in a given region. The weather servers are connected to internet through a hub [15] and bridge [16] or any other similar means. The said weather servers [12.1], [12.2] etc. from a plurality of geographical locations are connected to a plurality of weather stations via a plurality of means such as RS-232 / RS485 direct cable connection, conventional telephone connection, UHF/VHF wireless communication means and so forth. Real time weather data is transmitted by the autonomous weather stations to the respective weather servers either continuously or on request. Except in the case of telephone connectivity, the data flow is continuous. Weather servers are in turn programmed to retransmit the data to the client computers [17.1],... [17.n] that establish a communication link with the servers using standard network socket protocols. Fig. 3 represents a weather station [14] consisting of a suite of meteorological sensors such as wind speed and direction [19], air temperature [20], water temperature [21], solar radiation [22], relative humidity [23] and atmospheric pressure [24], and has flexibility to interface to additional sensors [25]. Sensor signal outputs are suitably conditioned using a signal-conditioner [27], and are interfaced to a data logger [28], which consists of a low power embedded microprocessor [29], on-board FLASH memory [30] CMOS RAM [31], digital input / output ports [32], an analog-to-digital converter [33], a real time clock [34] and an universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (DART) [35]. The FLASH memory is used to store the data acquisition program. The acquired time-tagged meteorological data is stored in CMOS RAM memory [31]. The microprocessor. [29] is put into low-power mode between successive measurements, and the real time clock [34] is used to wake-up the microprocessor from low-power consuming sleep-mode to conserve the power drain. The weather station is connected to the weather server through the datalogger's serial port via a communication link by any of the means such as a direct cable link using RS-232 or RS-485 type line drivers, or telephone connectivity, wireless UHF/VHF link etc., using compatible modems. The weather station also includes a battery [36], as a primary source of power, which is charged either through solar panels [37] or through mains power supply [38] via a regulator [39] depending on the facilities available at site. Each of the weather stations [14] is provided with a microprocessor based data logger, which performs functions such as data acquisition from the sensors, averaging, storing and communication with the weather server. Fig. 4 shows various activities performed by the weather server [12], wherein the said weather server [12] communicates with the weather stations [14.1 14.n]via a weather station server interface [40] and with client-computers [17.1 17.n] via client-server interface [41]. The said weather server [12] is implemented on windows NT platform and includes multiple serial ports to communicate with local and/or remote weather stations using conventional communication links. The present invention provides an internet-accessible real-time weather information system, which comprises a plurality of remote weather stations [14.1], [14.n] located at a plurality of geographical regions, each of the weather stations being connected to a set of instruments/sensors capable of capturing local weather parameters, the said weather stations being connected by conventional means through interface [40] to a plurality of region-wise weather servers [12.1] [[12.n], the said weather servers being connected to the internet (world wide web) through a conventional hub [15] and bridge [16] in such a manner so as to enable the said weather servers to retransmit the data via a client- server interface [41] to a plurality of spatially distributed client computers [17.1], [17.n] having capability of connecting to the internet (World Wide Web). In the present invention the weather station [14] consists of a suite of meteorological instruments/sensors such as wind speed and direction [19], air temperature [20], water temperature [21], solar radiation [22], relative humidity [23] and atmospheric pressure [24], and having flexibility to interface to additional sensors [25], the said instruments/sensors signal outputs being conditioned using a signal-conditioner [27], the conditioned signal being fed to a data logger [28] consisting of a low power embedded microprocessor [29], on-board FLASH memory [30], CMOS RAM [31], digital input / output ports [32], an analog-to-digital converter [33], a real time clock [34] and an universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (UART) [35], the said weather station also being provided with a rechargeable battery [36], as a primary source of power, capable of being charged through solar panels [37] or through mains power supply [38] via a regulator [39]. In the present invention the conventional means used for connecting the weather stations to the weather servers may be such as direct cable connection through RS-232 / RS485 interface, conventional land/cell telephone connection, UHF/VHF wireless communication, geo-stationary satellite. In the present invention the weather servers are programmed to retransmit the data to the client computers [17.1] ...[17.n] which establish a communication link with the servers using standard network socket protocols of the internet (World Wide Web). Accordingly, the present invention provides an internet-accessible real-time weather information system, which comprises a plurality of geographically distributed remote weather stations [14.1] to [14.n] to captur local weather parameters, each of the said weather stations being connected to a plurality of region-wise weather servers [12.1] to [12.n], the said weather servers being connected to a plurality of spatially distributed client computers [17.1] to [17.n] through a conventional hub [15] and bridge [16] and the world wide internet web; characterized in that the said weather stations [14.1] to [14.n] being connected through weather station server interface [40] to the weather servers [12.1] to [12.n] such as herein described and the said weather servers being connected through a client-server interface [41] to a plurality of spatially distributed client computers [17.1] to [17.n] having capability of connecting to the world wide internet web. In an embodiment of the present invention, the weather station(s) [14] consists of a suite of meteorological instruments/sensors such as wind speed and direction [19], air temperature [20], water temperature [21], solar radiation [22], relative humidity [23] and atmospheric pressure [24], and having flexibility to interface to additional sensors [25], the said weather station being provided with a rechargeable battery [36], as a primary source of power, capable of being charged through solar panels [37] or through mains power supply [38] via a regulator [39]; characterized in that the said instruments / sensors signal outputs being conditioned using a signal-conditioner [27], the conditioned signal being fed to a data logger [28] consisting of a low power embedded microprocessor [29], on-board FLASH memory [30], CMOS RAM [31], digital input / output ports [32], an analog- to-digital converter [33], a real time clock [34] and an universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (DART) [35], In another embodiment of the present invention, the said plurality of weather stations are connected to the said plurality of weather servers [12.1] to [12.n] by means, such as direct cable connection through RS-232 / RS485 interface, conventional land/cell telephone connection, UHFA/HF wireless communication, geostationary satellite. In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the weather servers retransmit the data to the client computers [17.1] to [17.n] through client-server interface [41]. In still another embodiment of the present invention, the weather servers are capable of receiving data through weather station server interface [40] from the weather stations [14.1] to [14.n]. In still yet another embodiment of the present invention, the weather server enables the client computers to access the weather data through client-server interface [41] connected to intranet, internet (WWW) or dial-up access. In a further embodiment of the present invention, the weather server connected to weather station server interface [40] reports abnormal behavior, if any, of a weather station by way of e-mail and voice messaging through telephone connectivity. In the present invention the weather servers are capable of hosting internet access services such as hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP), file transfer protocol (FTP) for remote access of weather data. In the present invention the weather server is programmed in such a manner so as to permit the client-computers to access the weather data through intranet, internet (WWW) or dial-up access. In the present invention the weather server is provided with means to report abnormal behavior, if any, of a weather station by way of e-mail and voice messaging through telephone connectivity. The internet-accessible real-time weather information system of the present invention provides a communication link between remote weather stations, weather servers and client computers through the internet (world wide web) using standard network socket protocols. The said weather servers are connected to a plurality of weather stations and the real time weather data being transmitted by the autonomous weather stations to the respective weather servers either continuously or on request and thereby providing for platform-independent global accessibility to weather information from a plurality of spatially distributed weather data platforms from a plurality of geographically remote locations to internet users including meteorological offices, using internet browsers, thus providing a means for dissemination of weather information for real time use on a global scale, a capability which was hitherto unavailable. The weather station is normally initialized, that is configured, after power-on. The initialization parameters include date and time , sensor warm-up time, sampling interval, recording interval, and other relevant user-information. The data logger, which normally remains in a low-power sleep-mode, is interrupted by either a wake-up signal from preprogrammed real-time-clock (RTC) or in response to commands received on the serial port from the weather server. In case of an RTC interrupt, the sensors' outputs are sampled, processed, locally stored in the logger's internal CMOS RAM memory, and sent to the weather server. Wind vector components are resolved for vector-averaging of winds. In response to the external client-commands received on the serial port, the data logger allows display of available storage space, downloading of data, change in current configuration, updating of the firmware etc. In the present system the weather server is based on Microsoft Windows NT platform which hosts internet (world wide web) services using Internet Information Server [IIS]. The server also takes care of periodic downloading of data, which has been locally stored at each weather station and also the maintenance of a database system. The client software is embedded within the HTTP document on the server. Fig.4 shows various activities performed by the weather server [12.1] etc. wherein the said weather server communicates with the weather stations via a weather station server interface [40] and with clients via a client-server interface [41]. The weather server continually looks for data on its serial communication port from different weather stations within the weather station server interface [40], wherein the incoming data in the form of ASCII character strings is read by the said server [12.1] etc. The weather station-server interface [40] performs functions such as reading of real time weather data, checking data integrity, issuing warning messages, performing periodic download and handling client-commands. The said data integrity check essentially detects outliers in the data set and various system parameters which determine the health of the weather station such as battery voltage, internal temperature, reference voltages etc. If the data integrity check reports any outliers or out-of-bound system parameters, then the server issues warning messages in the form e-mail messages through internet connectivity and in the form of voice messages through telephone connectivity to the personnel responsible for management of weather information. The client-server interface [41] enables access to services such as hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP), file transfer protocol (FTP) database access, network socket connectivity, forwarding of real time weather data and reception of client commands by the weather server [12.1] etc. With the use of the client-server interface [41] the clients are allowed to login into the weather server and select the desired weather station site from the available list and monitor the real time data. The client-server interface [41] also allows the clients to send queries to local database, which is maintained on the weather server and to retrieve the desired results in the form of formatted hyper text markup language (HTML) documents or alternatively to download data files using standard FTP protocols. The said queries provide for a plurality of options to retrieve information on one or more parameters acquired during any given period of interest, occurrence of parameters within defined limits, and so forth. The client program which handles communication with the weather server, and display of real time data on the client-computer's screen as well as user interaction that allows selection of various options is implemented using Java Applet embedded within HTML page. The real time data can be viewed in a plurality of formats such as Text, Scroll, Graphic, or Plot by selection of different menu options. The Configure option permits the privileged client to remotely configure the selected weather station, under password protection, with the desired initialization parameters such as date and time, sampling interval, recording interval, etc. The bottom of the said page contains HTTP/FTP links, to web pages, such as Info, Help, and Download. The link "Info" provides additional information on the weather information system, including sensor specification, technical documentation, etc. The link "Help" provides information on setup required for browser environment on the client computer. The link "Download" enables downloading of data files onto the client computer using the FTP protocol. The present invention was implemented by us to get access to real-time weather data by a plurality of users from geographically remote locations via internet (World Wide Web). Fig.5 shows a screen display of a typical sample of the weather data in Text format as a Hyper Text Markup Language [HTML] web page which is viewed using Internet Browser, wherein the upper segment [42] of the screen display indicates standard browser control panel. The next segment [43] of the screen shows real time meteorological data with menu at the top, which provides for the choice of different options. The weather data are updated on the screen at every sampling interval. In the Graphic mode, the data is represented on screen in the form of dials and gauges. In the Plot mode real time plots of different parameters of the incoming data can be seen on the screen. Fig. 6 shows a typical plot of air pressure and temperature. The other parameters can be similarly viewed on the screen by using the mouse-driven vertical scroll bar on the right hand side of the screen display. The main advantages of the present invention are: 1. It functions as a global scale observation network wherein the weather data from different geographically remote and spatially distributed weather stations can be archived at regional or world data banks. 2. It permits real time monitoring and tracking of large-scale meteorological disturbances such as cyclone, depression, thereby allowing a reliable prediction of their probable trajectory, and issuing of early warnings for safety and rescue operations. 3. It allows monitoring the health of any of the plurality of weather stations in the network, because any failure is immediately reported by the weather-server via e-mail and voice call. This feature is particularly useful for taking swift action to prevent loss of valuable data - a feature very important for remote sites. 4. It allows, through password protected features, an authorized internet client to remotely configure the weather station thereby avoiding distant site visits. 5. It allows, through the use of Internet Browser and client access software based on Java, platform independent access for an internet-client, irrespective of hardware and operating system of the client-computer. 19 We claim: 1. An internet-accessible real-time weather information system, which comprises a plurality of geographically distributed remote weather stations [14.1] to [14.n] to captur local weather parameters, each of the said weather stations being connected to a plurality of region-wise weather servers [12.1] to [12.n], the said weather servers being connected to a plurality of spatially distributed client computers [17.1] to [17.n] through a conventional hub [15] and bridge [16] and the world wide internet web; characterized in that the said weather stations [14.1] to [14.n] being connected through weather station server interface [40] to the weather servers [12.1] to [12.n] such as herein described, and the said weather servers being connected through a client-server interface [41] to a plurality of spatially distributed client computers [17.1] to [17.n] being connected to the world wide internet web. 2. An internet accessible real-time weather information system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the weather station(s) [14] consists of a suite of meteorological instruments/sensors such as wind speed and direction [19], air temperature [20], water temperature [21], solar radiation [22], relative humidity [23] and atmospheric pressure [24], and having flexibility to interface to additional sensors [25], the said weather station being provided with a rechargeable battery [36], as a primary source of power, capable of being charged through solar panels [37] or through mains power supply [38] via a regulator [39]; characterized in that the said instruments / sensors signal outputs being conditioned using a signal-conditioner [27], the said conditioned signal being fed to a data logger [28] ,the said data logger [28] consists of a low power embedded microprocessor [29], on-board FLASH memory [30], CMOS RAM [31], digital input / output ports [32], an analog-to-digital converter [33], a real time clock [34] and an universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (DART) [35], 3. An internet-accessible real-time weather information system as claimed in claims 1-2, wherein the said plurality of weather stations are connected to the said plurality of weather servers [12.1] to [12.n] by means, such as direct cable connection through RS-232 / RS485 interface, conventional land/cell telephone connection, UHF/VHF wireless communication, geo stationary satellite. 4. An internet-accessible real-time weather information system as claimed in claims 1-3, wherein the weather servers retransmit the data to the client computers [17.1] to [17.n] through client-server interface [41]. 5. An internet-accessible real-time weather information system as claimed in claims 1-4, wherein the weather servers are capable of receiving data through weather station server interface [40] from the weather stations [14.1] to [14.n]. 6. An internet-accessible real-time weather information system as claimed in claims 1-5, wherein the weather server enables the client computers to access the weather data through client-server interface [41] connected to intranet, internet (WWW) or dial-up access. 7. An internet-accessible real-time weather information system as claimed in claims 1 -6, wherein the weather server connected to weather station server interface [40] reports abnormal behavior, if any, of a weather station by way of e-mail and voice messaging through telephone connectivity. 8. An internet-accessible real-time weather information system substantially as herein described with reference to figures 2 to 6 of the drawings accompanying this specification.

Documents:

1536-del-1999-abstract.pdf

1536-del-1999-claims.pdf

1536-del-1999-correspondence-others.pdf

1536-del-1999-correspondence-po.pdf

1536-del-1999-description (complete).pdf

1536-del-1999-drawings.pdf

1536-del-1999-form-1.pdf

1536-del-1999-form-19.pdf

1536-del-1999-form-2.pdf