2015 Online International Confernece on Green Engineering and Technologies (IC-GET 2015)
Implementation of Cloud Server for Real Time Data
Storage using Raspberry Pi
S. Emima Princy
M.Tech, Embedded Systems
Karunya University
Coimbatore,India
emimaprincy@gmail.com
Abstract—A private cloud server can be set up in a Raspberry
Pi which could be used as a storage device for applications
involving real time signals. Raspberry Pi is a cheaper
microprocessor in which cloud computing infrastructure can be
obtained using cloud platforms provided by specific cloud vendors.
Real time signals acquired by any sensor that measures
environmental factors are analog in nature. Using microcontrollers
like Arduino or any analog to digital converters these analog
signals can be discretized and transmitted serially to the Raspberry
Pi. Hence Raspberry Pi can be used as a cloud server which serves
as a storage device for real time applications.
Keywords—cloud computing; real time signals;
I. INTRODUCTION
Cloud Storage is a backend –as-a-service which provides
seamless scalability and it removes the necessity of operating
databases which are distributed in nature. It is a fast and fully
managed service that is specifically designed for internet scale
applications. Cloud Storage has powerful real time notification
features and hence can be used in applications that are internet
based. A host computer which is dedicated to be deployed in
many programs and to which different computers are
connected through a network is called a Server and it can be a
single computer or a series of computers connected together.
All that is required from a server is to provide connectivity
through a network for the other computers. From large
organizations to smaller sectors a server has now become an
extremely essential thing that provides all the essential
services that are needed across a network.
The key feature of the server is that it can store a large
amount of data centrally and also it is able to provide access to
restricted users via the internet across different geographical
regions just by connecting into the same network. There is a
webserver called the host behind every domain or organization
private or public to which a specific URL is assigned. When
that URL is typed in the browser, access to the web server is
gained for that website. A readable page enabled by the
browser is opened and this is done because of the connection
between the two servers and this enables loading of graphical
pages for the required website. Raspberry Pi as a cloud storage
can be implemented in real time applications, for example
ECG of a patient proves significant in the field of medicine
where continuous monitoring and diagnosis is required. In
978-1-4673-9781-0/15/$31.00 © 2015 IEEE
Mr. K. Gerard Joe Nigel
Asst. Professor, Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering
Karunya University
Coimbatore, India
such applications, ECG signal can be acquired in a
microcontroller like PIC or Arduino, which could be then
transmitted to the Raspberry Pi server. Web based monitoring
can be achieved and the ECG signal of specific patients can be
recorded and saved in the private cloud with the patient’s
details in the database.
II. CLOUD SERVER
A. Need for an on-net storage device
Accessing data from anywhere in the world has become a
necessity nowadays and it is extremely convenient and
advantageous to have an always on-network storage device
which ensures the benefit of accessing the data from anywhere
with just an internet connection. This can be extended to
critical applications for example in the medical field where
data about a patient in the form of real time signals can be
recorded and stored in the cloud server and could be accessed
by the doctor from a different part altogether.
The on net storage is extremely beneficial because besides
providing access to different geographical regions through the
internet it also provides access to multiple clients at the same
time and to the same files. Before the evolution of such
storage devices, enterprises a huge amount of discrete file
servers typically a hundreds or even had to be separately
configured and maintained. Today, when more storage
capacity is required, on network storage devices can simply be
outfitted with larger disks or clustered together to provide both
vertical scalability and horizontal scalability. Many vendors
partner with cloud storage providers to provide customers with
an extra layer of redundancy for backing up files.
B. Owncloud in Raspberry Pi
OwnCloud is a free and open source software . Owncloud
operated similar to that of the Drop-box or google drive that is
widely used for storing files for personal use syncing with the
own files on a own server or website. OwnCloud is a suite of
client-server software for creating file hosting services and
using them. OwnCloud is functionally very similar to the
widely used Dropbox, with the primary functional difference
being that OwnCloud is free and open-source, and hence
anyone can install and operate it without charge on a private
server and except for the disk capacity of the device there are
 2015 Online International Confernece on Green Engineering and Technologies (IC-GET 2015)
no limits on storage space or to the number of connected
clients. On the other hand, though Dropbox serves for similar
purpose, it is not open source. Raspberry pi is a device which
can be turned into a network based private storage device by
installing owncloud so that it can be treated as a cloud server
for transfer of files over the internet. It is a personal cloud that
runs on the server. Using Raspberry Pi cloud, it is possible to
push sensor data to cloud for real time data storage.
best choice since it can be interfaced with the Raspberry Pi.
Analogread() is a function in arduino side that reads the
analog value from the analog input port and converts into an
integer and stores it in a variable called value. The voltage
value of the potentiometer is obtained from the step size
values of the ADC and the floating point voltage can be
calculated using the below formula,
float voltage value
 
III. HARDWARE SET-UP
Raspberry Pi is a powerful tiny computer based on
ARM based microcontroller. It works on Linux distributions
like Raspbian, Debian operating systems. A Raspberry Pi
board with a prepared operating system SD card, USB
keyboard, mouse, HDMI display, power supply and cables it
is possible to make the Raspberry Pi to work like a normal
general purpose computer.
A. OS Installation
Raspberry Pi does not have internal storage or built-in
operating system and it requires an SD-card that is set up to
boot the Pi. An SD-card has to be connected to the normal
windows machine using a card reader. From the Raspberry
Pi’s official website NOOBS has to be downloaded and
unzipped the same in the SD-card after which the SD-card
serves as the internal storage for the Raspberry Pi and using
the NOOBS main menu Raspbian OS can be installed in it. As
soon as the SD-card is inserted in the Raspberry Pi, the device
boots up.

Output is as as viewed in the serial monitor. As the
potentiometer is changed, the corresponding voltage values
are displayed.
D. Wiring Raspberry Pi and Arduino
Raspberry Pi is a device, which operates in 3.3V whereas
Arduino is a device, which operates in 5V. So whenever
Arduino is supposed to send a data, there must be a voltage
divider between the two devices so that Raspberry Pi may not
be damaged. Level logic converter can also be used between
the two devices. Even before initializing the RX pin on the
Arduino it is held at 5 Volts even because the Arduino is
flashed from Arduino IDE through these pins.

B. Internet Settings
The quickest way to get the Raspberry Pi connected to the
internet is to connect an Ethernet patch cable and to just plug
into the network router. For this to work, the router should be
configured for DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol).

x Wired network configuration can be done by making

changes in the configuration file in the path
/etc/network/interfaces. To open the file and see,
using the following command,
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
iface eth0 inet dhcp

x Wireless network configuration can be done using

USB Wi-Fi adapters, which are compatible with the
Raspberry Pi. There is a list of USB Wi-Fi adapters
supported by default by the Raspberry Pi.
C. Usage of Arduino Fig. 1. Arduino and Raspberry Pi Interfacing

The Raspberry Pi computer is a digital only computer IV. SERIAL COMMUNICATION

which does not read analog inputs. Most of the measurement
factors from the environment measured using sensors give
analog value and it is extremely important to read these analog
signals so as to process or store that in a computer. Arduino
has 10-bit ADC on board, with resolution of 0.0049V for
voltage and in most scenarios this resolution is quite good.
Arduino boards have the serial port/USB for serial
communication. Hence for reading analog input Arduino is the
Serial communication means only one bit of information
is sent a time while in parallel communication many bits are
transferred at a time. Serial communication protocol RS-232 is
the widely used and well known means of communicating
serial data from one device to the other. The computers mostly
do not have means of serial communication hence this
protocol is used for serial communication. Also there are serial
 2015 Online International Confernece on Green Engineering and Technologies (IC-GET 2015)
2015 Online International Conference on Green Engineering and Technologies (IC-GET)
USB ports in the computers that use a USB-to-serial driver to
send and receive serial communication over USB. This is how
the Arduino communicates with a computer and other devices.
The Arduino serial port or UART (universal asynchronous
receiver transmitter) is on digital pins 0 (RX) and 1 (TX) in
which RX is used to receive the data and TX is used to send
the data. They have corresponding LEDs labeled RX and TX
that blink when data passes and this is noticeable when a new
sketch is loaded onto the board.
To send data over the serial port on the Arduino, the
Serial object is used to start the serial communication at a
particular baud which is the rate at which the data is
transferred and 9600 is usually the baud rate used unless
otherwise any other required rate is specified.Once the Serial
object has started, then the println and print methods are used
to print information to the serial port.
A. Serial Transmission
The sketch which is used in the Arduino side has
used the port A3 which is an analog pin in which the Fig. 3. Transmitted values displayed in Raspberry Pi terminal
potentiometer is connected which is setup as the input pin. 1 is
the TX pin in Arduino which is configured as the output pin. B. Plotting the values
Analog values which are converted by the function The data from the sensor which is discretized using
“analogRead” into digital in Arduino are placed in the TX pin the Arduino has to be read in Raspberry Pi for which, python
and the same is transmitted to the Raspberry Pi. program can be used. In order to execute the python script
Now the values which are received at the RX pin of through terminal, first it is necessary to navigate to the path
Raspberry through serial communication are to be read from where the python code has been saved and then execute the
the port using python programming. First step is to install py- python script which will write the step values into a dat file.
Serial package which enables the Pi to read serial data. Using the python script these step values obtained can be
sudo apt-get install python-serial written in a dat file and a PNG file showing the plot of the
Here initially the python serial library is called. The sensor values can be obtained.
device in the port ttyAMA0 which is the serial port whose data
is taken and stored in a variable called “ser”. Then the
connection is opened. When the entire process is over, the
connection is closed using,
ser.close()

Fig. 4. Plot from the real time values

Fig. 2. Serial monitor display in Arduino IDE after interfacing with
Raspberry Pi
V. OWNCLOUD IN RASPBERRYPI
The Raspberry Pi’s low power consumption makes it
well suited to the role of always-on server. Owncloud is a
open source software package that provides remote file
sharing services over the internet and it is similar to Dropbox.
With Owncloud, ownership is retained and since it is installed
on a Linux platform complete permission for access is given
 2015 Online International Confernece on Green Engineering and Technologies (IC-GET 2015)
2015 Online International Conference on Green Engineering and Technologies (IC-GET)
only to the root user. Security and control of the shared data is
also ensured.
A. Owncloud set-up
Using Owncloud, data can be shared between
devices. Files can be uploaded onto the server and can be
retrieved from it. Owncloud can also be used to share files
across the Internet which is one of its best features. Sharing
the files across the Internet that is, accessing Owncloud on the
Pi from a remote location requires that the Pi should be
configured with the internet settings.
Fig. 5. Owncloud admin login
B. Viewing Files in the cloud
Using python program, a plot was plotted with the serial
data obtained in the serial port. The plot was saved in .png
format and the same was moved into the cloud.
Fig. 6. Viewing files in owncloud
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