contributing

As the hardware (the AWS) is open hardware and the software is open source, external contributions as well as reuse is encouraged.

Possible topics for contributions

Expanding the stations with more sensors while retaining the ability to fit any station with any choice of sensors (among the supported ones) would be useful. Of course, the sensors must remain very cheap (compared to the standard instruments used on high end AWS). But having more sensors would allows cross-validating measurements as well as many more applications for the AWS. For example, being able to close the energy balance (and mass balance) would allow running physical models on the measured data for avalanche and hydrological applications... Even if the measurements are by far not as precise as those performed on high end AWS, many interesting applications could still be developed that would significantly improve the forecasting abilities for areas with low measurements density (ie it is better to have some lower quality data than no data at all).

Additional sensors that could be investigated are:

• solar radiation sensor (such as this AdaFruit outdoor VEML7700 radiation sensor for less than 5$ or this AdaFruit indoor with a radiation filter in order to attenuate the signal in front of it, see the light intensity chart)
• soil moisture sensor (such as this one for 8$)
• snow height sensor (for example, the HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Distance Sensor for 6$)
• surface temperature sensor (for example the AMG8833 Thermal Camera for $60)
• wind speed and direction sensor
• rain gauge (can it be cheap enough?)

Integrating new sensors means programming the firmware to be able to perform the measurements (with a mechanism to support stations having/missing this sensor) in the correct units (ie physical, derived SI units), validating the correct operation and building some casing around the sensor itself (in a way that is both cheap and easy to reproduce and source in various).