Development of a Low-Cost Sensing Node with Active Ventilation Fan for Air Pollution Monitoring
(2021)
A fully designed low-cost sensing node for air pollution monitoring and calibration results for several low-cost gas sensors are presented. As the state of the art is lacking information on the importance of an active ventilation system, the effect of an active fan is compared to the passive ventilation of a lamellar structured casing. Measurements obtained in an urban outdoor environment show that readings of the low-cost dust sensor (Sharp GP2Y1010AU0F) are distorted by the active ventilation system. While this behavior requires further research, a correlation with temperature and humidity inside the node shown.
Gas Distribution Mapping (GDM) is essential in monitoring hazardous environments, where uneven sampling and spatial sparsity of data present significant challenges. Traditional methods for GDM often fall short in accuracy and expressiveness. Modern learning-based approaches employing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) require regular-sized input data, limiting their adaptability to irregular and sparse datasets typically encountered in GDM. This study addresses these shortcomings by showcasing Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) for learningbased GDM on irregular and spatially sparse sensor data. Our Radius-Based, Bi-Directionally connected GNN (RABI-GNN) was trained on a synthetic gas distribution dataset on which it outperforms our previous CNN-based model while overcoming its constraints. We demonstrate the flexibility of RABI-GNN by applying it to real-world data obtained in an industrial steel factory, highlighting promising opportunities for more accurate GDM models.