LAMSkyCam: A Low-cost and Miniature Ground-based Sky Camera

TL;DR

This paper introduces a low-cost, compact ground-based sky camera built with 3D printed and off-the-shelf parts, capable of capturing high-resolution sky images for atmospheric research in diverse conditions.

Contribution

It presents a novel, affordable, and easy-to-manufacture sky camera design that can be deployed in remote areas without infrastructure changes.

Findings

Camera captures high-resolution images every 5 minutes.

Design is lightweight, robust, and suitable for various climates.

Hardware design is open-source for easy replication.

Abstract

Ground-based sky imagers (GSIs) are increasingly becoming popular amongst the remote sensing analysts. This is because such imagers offer fantastic alternatives to satellite measurements for the purpose of earth observations. In this paper, we propose an extremely low-cost and miniature ground-based sky camera for atmospheric study. Built using $3$D printed components and off-the-shelf components, our sky camera is lightweight and robust for use in diverse climatic conditions. With a $63^{\circ}$ field of view angle, the camera captures high resolution sky/cloud images for both day and night times at $5$ minute intervals. The camera is designed to be be mounted on a pole-like architecture and with its compact form, it can be installed at any location without requiring any change in the existing infrastructure. For remote areas, the camera has also a local backup facility from which data can be easily accessed manually. We have open-sourced the hardware design of our sky camera, and therefore researchers can easily manufacture and deploy these cameras for their respective use cases.