TY - JOUR

T1 - The effect of ego-motion on environmental monitoring

AU - Lerner, Uri

AU - Yacobi, Tamar

AU - Levy, Ilan

AU - Moltchanov, Sharon A.

AU - Cole-Hunter, Tom

AU - Fishbain, Barak

N1 - Funding Information: This work was partially supported by the 7th European Framework Program (FP7) ENV.2012.6.5-1, grant agreement no. 308524 (CITI-SENSE), the Technion Center of Excellence in Exposure Science and Environmental Health (TCEEH) budget # 2018567 , and the New York Metropolitan Research Fund budget # 2020306 . Publisher Copyright: © 2015 Elsevier B.V.

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - Air pollution has a proven impact on public health. Currently, pollutant levels are obtained by high-priced, sizeable, stationary Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) stations. Recent developments in sensory and communication technologies have made relatively low-cost, micro-sensing units (MSUs) feasible. Their lower power consumption and small size enable mobile sensing, deploying single or multiple units simultaneously. Recent studies have reported on measurements acquired by mobile MSUs, mounted on cars, bicycles and pedestrians. While these modes of transportation inherently present different velocity and acceleration regimes, the effect of the sensors' varying movement characteristics have not been previously accounted for. This research assesses the impact of sensor's motion on its functionality through laboratory measurements and a field campaign. The laboratory setup consists of a wind tunnel to assess the effect of air flow on the measurements of nitrogen dioxide and ozone at different velocities in a controlled environment, while the field campaign is based on three cars mounted with MSUs, measuring pollutants and environmental variables at different traveling speeds. In both experimental designs we can regard the MSUs as a moving object in the environment, i.e. having a distinct ego-motion. The results show that MSU's behavior is highly affected by variation in speed and sensor placement with respect to direction of movement, mainly due to the physical properties of installed sensors. This strongly suggests that any future design of MSU must account for the speed effect from the design stage all the way through deployment and results analysis. This is the first report examining the influence of airflow variations on MSU's ability to accurately measure pollutant levels.

AB - Air pollution has a proven impact on public health. Currently, pollutant levels are obtained by high-priced, sizeable, stationary Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) stations. Recent developments in sensory and communication technologies have made relatively low-cost, micro-sensing units (MSUs) feasible. Their lower power consumption and small size enable mobile sensing, deploying single or multiple units simultaneously. Recent studies have reported on measurements acquired by mobile MSUs, mounted on cars, bicycles and pedestrians. While these modes of transportation inherently present different velocity and acceleration regimes, the effect of the sensors' varying movement characteristics have not been previously accounted for. This research assesses the impact of sensor's motion on its functionality through laboratory measurements and a field campaign. The laboratory setup consists of a wind tunnel to assess the effect of air flow on the measurements of nitrogen dioxide and ozone at different velocities in a controlled environment, while the field campaign is based on three cars mounted with MSUs, measuring pollutants and environmental variables at different traveling speeds. In both experimental designs we can regard the MSUs as a moving object in the environment, i.e. having a distinct ego-motion. The results show that MSU's behavior is highly affected by variation in speed and sensor placement with respect to direction of movement, mainly due to the physical properties of installed sensors. This strongly suggests that any future design of MSU must account for the speed effect from the design stage all the way through deployment and results analysis. This is the first report examining the influence of airflow variations on MSU's ability to accurately measure pollutant levels.

KW - Air pollution

KW - Ego-motion

KW - Exposure

KW - Micro sensing units

KW - Micro-Sensor Calibration

KW - Monitoring

U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.06.066

DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.06.066

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 26150302

AN - SCOPUS:84934281011

VL - 533

SP - 8

EP - 16

JO - Science of the Total Environment

JF - Science of the Total Environment

SN - 0048-9697

ER -