1. System Implementation
Balluino: High Altitude IOT Based Real Time Air Quality Management System Using Balloon/Drone
Soumil Shah, Zhaopeng Xu, Diya Peng, Tong Zuo, Jani Pallis, Xingguo Xiong
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT 06604
Abstract
System Implementation
Internet of Things paradigm originates from the proliferation of intelligent devices that can sense, compute and communicate data streams in a ubiquitous information and communication network. Degradation of air quality in cities is the result of a complex interaction between natural and anthropogenic environmental conditions. With the increase in urbanization and industrialization and due to poor control on emissions and little use of catalytic converters, a great amount of particulate and toxic gases are produced. It is important to monitor the air pollution for better protection of human health. In this poster, a high altitude drone/balloon based open source pollution monitoring system is developed. We integrated multiple sensors (e.g. gas, temperature, humidity, pressure and altitude sensors) with popular Arduino microcontroller platform. The measured air pollution data can be logged into microSD card. The data can also be uploaded to cloud server for real-time processing. This research project enables us to monitor the air pollution level and identify the origin of air pollution using quadcopter or balloon based aerial platform.
Figure 3. Device to monitor Temperature and Humidity
Figure 4. Device to monitor Pm 2.5 and PM10 Particles
Figure 5. Device to monitor pressure, altitude
Introduction
Figure 6. Long range RF communication modules could send data up to 50 km
The environmental problems are growing rapidly. Air pollutants from cars, buses and trucks, particularly ground-level ozone and particulate matter can worsen respiratory diseases and trigger asthma attacks. Transportation can be responsible for more than 50 percent of carbon monoxide in the air. This carbon monoxide can play havoc on human health. The air pollution may lead to Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and escalate risk of cancer.
Internet of Things (IoT) may become helpful in cities for monitoring air pollution. These contaminants may be classified as being either anthropogenic (result from human activities) or caused by natural events (such as fire, eruption) or resulting by decomposition of organic compound regardless of their origin.
Pollutants can be divided into two types: primary pollutant and secondary pollutants.
Primary pollutants, such as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and halogen compounds. They are released directly into the atmosphere from sources, and have high health impacts.
Secondary pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, hydrogen peroxide, ozone, sulfate and nitrate aerosols. They are not directly emitted. These pollutants are formed by atmospheric chemical processes acting upon primary pollutants, and event other gaseous species (non pollutant) in the atmosphere. The environmental impact of the air pollutants is relatively less harmful.
Measurement Results
Proposed Solution
Figure 7. Measured temperature vs time
Figure 8. Measured carbon monoxide (in PPM)
We developed a hybrid system that can work with and without internet efficiently. When the drone is in the air it shall send data to cloud server and we can monitor the data live through apps on smart phone. The data is also stored in form of .csv file on a cloud server. In case when Internet fails, the portable data logging will capture data in microSD card. The microSD card can later be inserted into computer and all data can be analyzed in form of graph and charts.
We used Arduino Nano as portable Data logging system along with microSD card reader to record samples. For internet based data logging we used NodeMCU module. It has ESP8266 core along with all sensors to fetch the data to cloud server. We decided to use Blynk app since it is open source and features are explained in software part.
We monitored temperature, humidity, pressure, altitude and few atmospheric gases like Ammonia (NH3), Carbon monooxide (CO), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Propane(C3H8), Hydrogen(H2), Butane (C4H10), Ethanol (C2H5OH), Methane (CH4) etc.
Based on the results we plot the graphs of all gases and map the air pollution of particular area using Drone or Balloons. These result can help us know the pollution of particular area and the measured data can be adopted to control the air pollution to minimize its threat to human health.
PPM
Figure 9. Measured level of Ammonia gas in ppm
Figure 10. Measured level of Hydrogen gas in ppm
Systems Block Diagram
Figure 12. Levels of Pm 10
Figure 11. Measured humidity level
Figure 13. Measured PM2.5 level
Figure 14. Measured pressure level
Figure 1. Block diagram of drone/balloon based PM2.5 remote sensing system
Conclusion
In this poster, we used high altitude balloon or drone to measure several gases and other parameters including temperature, humidity, pressure, altitude, PM2.5, PM10, carbon monoxide, ammonia, hydrogen, etc. These data will help us to plot heat map which will tell from where these pollution come from. Based upon that preventive measures to control the air pollution can be suggested. Future work would include performing machine learning to predict source of this pollution and enabling drone-to-drone communication for efficient mapping of PM2.5 and PM10 in air pollution.
Figure 2. Flying drone carrying the payload