Performance evaluation of a cheap, open source, digital environmental monitor based on the Raspberry Pi

We report on the design, construction and evaluation of a low-cost digital environmental monitoring system based on a popular micro-computer board and mass market digital sensors. The system is based around the use of open source software and readily available digital sensors, providing key parameters required for environmentally-controlled calibration laboratories: air temperature, pressure and humidity. Each system logs data at set intervals with front-panel display, web page graphical display and email alerting when exceeding set tolerances. The sensors have been calibrated at the National Physical Laboratory using standards traceable to the SI. Long term stability of the system is estimated and in addition to monitoring of laboratory environments for regulatory purposes, the systems can also be used to provide on-demand values for local refractive index with an expanded (k = 2) uncertainty of 1.1 x 10(-7) as required for many optical-based measuring systems. Crown Copyright (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.