Prototyping an environmental sensor network for meteorological and climate studies at the city scale

Understanding and managing climate change at the city scale requires collecting environmental data with a temporal and spatial resolution that is not typically available to research institution. As a contribution towards filling this gap, we present the general architecture of an internet-of-things (IoT) sensor network for environmental research at the city scale. We describe in detail the software and hardware design of the IoT measurement devices, which are built from inexpensive, off-the-shelf sensors and components. A prototype version of the network is currently under test at the New York University Abu Dhabi campus. We show some encouraging preliminary data and discuss future enhancements.