It also increases potential health risks such as stroke, heart disease, lung cancer and asthma due to poor ambient air quality. Therefore, it is necessary to install an air quality monitoring system in the city to ensure that the air is not polluted.
It also increases potential health risks such as stroke, heart disease, lung cancer and asthma due to poor ambient air quality. Therefore, it is necessary to install an air quality monitoring system in the city to ensure that the air is not polluted. This can be done by installing sensors that monitor levels of dust particles, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, and this information can be shared with the public via smartphones, where apps allow people to monitor real-time data on current air quality levels in the area. Therefore, through these implementations, a better quality of life can be achieved.
• To design an innovative air quality monitoring system that can cover one square kilometer of urban area
• To monitor the air quality index through smartphone and smartwatch applications from installed sensors on buildings with height ranges of 3 meters to 6 meters
• To propose preventive actions through smartphones and smartwatch applications when the air quality level exceeds threshold values.
a) Design Ideas
Air quality sensors are installed in the targeted area on top of buildings, industrial areas, traffic and residential areas. These sensors are connected to a microcontroller to control the sensors network. The data collected by the microcontroller is transmitted to the cloud for analysis. The analyzed data is shared to the public through a smartphone app.
b) How it works
Wireless sensors placed at strategic locations sense the level of dust particles, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide in the air. This information is transmitted to a gateway which forwards it to a cloud database by means of cellular or WiFi communication. In the cloud, the data are analyzed to provide information on the air quality. The information on the air quality is shared through a smartphone app. This allows the relevant authority to take remedial action and the community to take precautionary measures.
c) What makes it innovative?
This project proposes an idea to install monitoring applications on smartphones. It is innovative because it provides easy access to the public to monitor real time air quality in their area. It uses low cost and readily available devices such as a dust sensor, carbon monoxide gas sensor, carbon dioxide gas sensor, and nitrogen dioxide gas sensor. For controlling these sensors, microcontrollers are used and the microcontrollers also act as transmitter to transmit the data to the cloud database. The information on air quality can be accessed through a smartphone app in real time.
d) How would it be produced?
The IoT based air quality monitoring system can be produced by using sensors and microcontrollers available in the market. The microcontrollers are programmed to take the sensors as input and transmit the data to the cloud. An algorithm is developed to analyse the data and send it to the smartphones app. Smartphone app will be developed for user to access the air quality information in real-time.
e) Where would it be applied?
i. Sensors will be installed on top of buildings, industrial areas, traffic and residential areas.
ii. Smartphone app for monitoring is installed in individual smartphone.
According to Climate & Clean Air Coalition (n.d), 92% of Asia and the Pacific population which is about 4 billion people are exposed to levels of air pollution that pose a significant risk to their health. Hence, with the implementation of real-time air quality monitoring system installed at targeted areas and monitoring applications in smartphone, sustainable clean air can be achieved which provide healthy environment to everybody affected by bad air quality.
