Moving sensors for dynamic air quality measurement
‘[…] To put in context the indoor living spaces, […] users need to look at the two sides of the coin in order to take the right action. What’s the point in opening the windows if the outdoor air is also polluted right?‘ — BreezoMeter
With this blog post, I want to look with you into the future. A future where we live in Smart Cities and have emission free & sustainable cars. Why? Let me back up a little:
In my recent posts, I mentioned BreezoMeter, a company monitoring outdoor air quality worldwide & displaying it for you via their LIVE air quality map. Plus, you can always check the air pollution around you, just by typing ‘air pollution‘ in your Google search bar. But they are not only concerned about outdoor air quality. Indoor Air Quality is sometimes up to 5x more harmful than the pollution outdoors. So, they took care of it, by collaborating with Foobot, which offers a Indoor Air Quality monitoring device. Why are they working together? Well, to quote BreezoMeter; ‘[…] To put in context the indoor living spaces, Foobot understands that users need to look at the two sides of the coin in order to take the right action. What’s the point in opening the windows if the outdoor air is also polluted right?‘ (Breezometer, 2018) Sometimes, you have to look at the macro-environment, to understand the micro-environment.
I write this blog to spread the word about air quality awareness and ideas I have, which I cannot implement myself due to a lack of resources. So here is my take on this:
On their blog, I read an interview with the company’s CEO & founder Ran Korber. You can check it out here. In this post, the topic of Smart Cities is discussed including especially one point that grabbed my attention. The company’s suggestion to increase accuracy is to use machine learning and big data, and I agree. Ran Korber says that simply by increasing the number of air quality sensors, this is not necessarily a consequence, which could be true, but: Why not increase the number of sensors anyway? The fastest way to increase the mesh of sensors would be to use MEMS sensors, integrated into smartphones and wearables. Even if it is (with most of those sensors) currently not possible to detect specific gases. The more data points, the more accurate the mesh.
For a better understanding, let me give you an example in the field of weather mapping: Barometric pressure sensors are used, to detect weather changes. Weather stations in a fixed location, determine pressure changes in the atmosphere — the probability that you get weather information from a weather station 30 miles away is not unlikely. So, the mesh of weather stations is not very tight. The solution? Many high-end and falgship smartphones have a pressure sensors implemented, and they are accurate enough to detect weather changes. So, why not read all the pressure sensor data of every smartphone and make sense of it. Therefore, weather forecasts can be individualized to the user.
Now, let’s get back to Air Quality detection. First off, I have to say that in many locations the grid is much better with BreezoMeter and their already established system, than the weather station grid — anyway, as long as there is a possibility for improvement, why not? So, same principle — let’s put gas sensors in wearables and smartphones, read their data and make sense of it. Even if the gas sensor in the smartphone might not be able to differentiate between CO, O3, PM10 and PM2.5 (just to give examples), it still gives an indication, if the air quality is affecting people’s health or not. Plus: You have moving sensors, detecting and verifying the air quality constantly. Air Quality measurements in undergrounds or parking lots AND air quality measurements for indoor areas become possible — places where you probably wouldn’t place stationary sensors. These sensors can be within 10 minutes in two completely different locations — which means in the long run, you might not even need as many sensors as you would need with stationary sensors.
To learn more about, how accurate they already can determine the air quality, check out the video, published on their YouTube channel:
And now, back to the beginning of my post: Why not install a gas sensor in every electrical (or emission free) car? Of course, nowadays, you will most probably see that the data mostly shows bad air quality around streets, because there are too many cars causing emission. But we are working towards a more sustainable future, right?
Why not start now — plus: This data can also be used now, in addition to the already existing stationary sensors that can provide a higher accuracy, to create a more complete picture of the worlds air pollution — even if it is showing the obvious, it is raising awareness. Before I said, at walking speed, within 10 minutes the sensor can be somewhere completely else — imagine the same at car speed.
Thanks for reading!
References
Journals
BreezoMeter, Air Quality Map, retrieved from: https://breezometer.com/air-quality-map/
BreezoMeter, Air Quality Data for Smart Cities, retrieved from: https://blog.breezometer.com/air-quality-data-for-smart-cities
BreezoMeter, Blog, retrieved from: https://blog.breezometer.com/
BreezoMeter, Foobot case study, retrieved from: https://breezometer.com/use-cases/foobot-case-study/
BreezoMeter, Home, retrieved from: https://breezometer.com/
Foobot, Home, retrieved from: https://foobot.io/
