An Umbrella as a Mobile Acoustic Rain Gauge for use in Urban Areas

To validate rainfall intensity in urban areas measured by satellite a first prototype proof of concept is introduced and tested. Using low-cost electronics an umbrella is converted into a mobile acoustic rain gauge which can be used in urban areas to measure rainfall intensities. A reed switch is placed in the umbrella to measure whether the umbrella is open or closed. Using a piezoelectric sensor and a Sparkfun sound detector rain droplets are detected and using a Pycom WiPy send over Bluetooth to an application which saves it on an online server. Tests during a laboratory experiment to see how the output data evolves shows that the data collected have an output range of about 10 % compared to its mean value. During field evaluation, to compare its output data with rainfall intensities as measured with radar, it is shown that the output data follows the radar measurements within acceptable bounds.