Laboratory and field evaluation of three low‐cost particulate matter sensors

Abstract

Low‐cost off‐the‐shelf particulate matter (PM) sensors have the potentiality to be used for evaluating the air quality in outdoor settings. Monitoring of air quality in surface coal mines is an example of such applications. In coal mines, long‐term exposure to inhalation of coal dust is harmful and can lead to coal workers' pneumoconiosis, which is a potentially disabling lung disease. Therefore, continual monitoring of air quality in coal mines is a must and vital and can potentially assist in preventing such diseases. Although, using and deploying of the existing low‐cost and lightweight sensors can help to improve monitoring resolution in a much cost‐effective manner, there are some concerns regarding the reliability of the collected data from these sensors. Therefore, low‐cost PM sensors are required to initially be compared with the standard reference instruments and then be calibrated. In this study, three different types of low‐cost, light‐scattering‐based widely available PM sensors (Shinyei PPD42NS, Sharp GP2Y1010AU0F and Laser SEN0177) are evaluated, compared, and calibrated with the reference instruments in a controlled environment as well as in a field experiment (surface coal mine).

Evaluation and calibration of low‐cost off‐the‐shelf particulate matter sensors using machine learning techniques

“…Figure 3 in ref. [25] indicates the comparison of the 15‐min TWA respirable dust concentration for PDM 3700 along with corrected PDR 1500 and corrected DustTrak DRX. Data was collected in a controlled environment from the three different types of PM sensors along with the reference instruments over a course of 4 days.…”

“…The performance of these three reference instruments was previously compared with each other in our previous work in ref. [25]. Note that Dust-Trak II Aerosol Monitor uses light-scattering method to measure the PM concentration.…”

“…Moreover, the PDM 3700 instrument records a 15-min of time-weighted average (TWA) for measurement of the respirable dust concentration to assist in comparing the dust sensor output. For this research, the performance of all three reference instruments (PDM 3700, PDR 1500, and DustTrak DRX) have been compared with each other and shown in [25]. We utilised coal dust on the final day of the experiment.…”

“…Many calibration techniques used are based on simple statistical methods such linear regression. As an example, Ghamari et al in [25] used a simple linear regression technique to demonstrate the relationship between the response of low-cost sensors with reference instruments. Statistical linear regression techniques have been used as a core method for calibration in many articles such as in refs.…”

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Communications for Civil Applications: A Review

“…Multi-rotor drones can also be used for autonomous monitoring, analysis, and countering of airborne particles [116], [117]. However, in order to be able to equip drones with light-weight sensors, lowcost, off-the-shelf Particulate Matter (PM) sensors must initially be compared with the standard costly reference instruments and then be calibrated [118], [119].…”