Real-time air quality monitoring through mobile sensing in metropolitan areas

Srinivas Devarakonda, Parveen Sevusu, Hongzhang Liu, Ruilin Liu, Liviu Iftode, Badri Nath

Abstract: Traditionally, pollution measurements are performed using expensive equipment at fixed locations or dedicated mobile equipment laboratories. This is a coarse-grained and expensive approach where the pollution measurements are few and far in-between. In this paper, we present a vehicular-based mobile approach for measuring fine-grained air quality in real-time. We propose two cost effective data farming models -- one that can be deployed on public transportation and the second a personal sensing device. We present preliminary prototypes and discuss implementation challenges and early experiments.