There's a central irony in this project somewhere... we're just not quite sure where it is. Anyway, instead of denying the reality of the weather with your umbrella, you can embrace it by turning said umbrella into a weather station. Clever stuff...
A piezo sensor stuck under the canvas measures the vibrations caused by falling raindrops. This is wired into a 20-euro [about $28] mobile-phone Bluetooth earpiece, which dumps its information into an app. The smartphone then links all its data over the cell network to a laptop. Experiments in the lab and in Dr. Hut's back yard during a light shower have delivered some encouraging results. He is getting a reasonable correlation with a proper rain gauge sitting alongside.
Surprisingly, there are now fewer rain gauges than in years past, because they are expensive to maintain, and "people who do operational water management or do research into hydrology... don't have the access to the data they used to," he told the BBC. In fact, all the rain gauges in the world capable of providing real-time data would cover an area significantly smaller than a soccer field, according to NASA scientist Chris Kidd.
Hut said he hopes so-called "smart umbrellas" could solve that problem in the future, providing real-time info to scientist to help "improve our ability to predict urban flooding and take measures when things are going bad."
[BBC]
