N-smarts

Abstract

By attaching sensors to GPS-enabled cell phones, we can gather the raw data necessary to begin understand how urban air pollution impacts both individuals and communities. In this paper we introduce a hardware and software platform for exploring algorithms and data gathered from pollution sensors integrated into cell phones, and discuss our main research agenda going forward.

Characteristics and applications of small, portable gaseous air pollution monitors

“…health (Cattaneo et al, 2010;DelgadoSaborit, 2012;Wu et al, 2010), environment (MacNaughton et al, 2014), air pollution mitigation (White et al, 2012)). More advanced studies have described the technologically innovative development of sensor systems that may be directly connected to smartphones (Hasenfratz et al, 2012;Honicky et al, 2008), wirelessly connected to smartphones (Bales et al, 2014), and paired with smartphone apps (Antonic et al, 2014;Dutta et al, 2009).…”

“…environmental sensitivity to temperature and humidity) must be accounted for. Honicky et al (2008) highlighted various challenges with the quality of air pollution sensor data from networked mobile monitors, challenges that include privacy, interference of user behavior, location coverage, calibration accuracy, and social aspects of mobile sensing. An active area of research involves examining the fundamental science behind collection methods, variability of common air pollutants in urban areas, and testing and validation of methods not using crowdsourcing (Cao and Thompson, 2016;Good et al, 2015;Mead et al, 2013;Van den Bossche et al, 2015).…”

“…Here, researchers routinely cite the need for post-processing methods, such as background normalization, event detection, and corrections for sensor drift over long time scales to be applied for accurate assessment of measurements. Such post-processing methods are limited in crowdsourcing studies, and hence validating crowdsourced data is a challenge (Honicky et al, 2008).…”

Empowering smartphone users with sensor node for air quality measurement

“…Particularly interesting are concepts of participatory sensing, featuring citizens participating in context-aware collection of information. In such designs, sensors typically use smartphones for geo-tagging and relaying information into the web-service accessed by public [5][6][7][8].…”

“…Particularly interesting are concepts of participatory sensing, featuring citizens participating in context-aware collection of information. In such designs, sensors typically use smartphones for geo-tagging and relaying information into the web-service accessed by public [5][6][7][8].Typically, concentrations of atmospheric gasses and pollutants, such as CO, CO 2 , NO 2 , O 3 , SO 2 , and volatile-organic compounds (VOC), are measured, along with temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and particulate matter. Concentrations of most of the mentioned gasses are measured either using passive electrochemical sensors, featuring lower power consumption, but higher prices and shorter life-time [7], or using longer-lasting and lower priced semiconductor metal-oxide (MOX) sensors [8,9].…”