A Smart Wireless Sensor Network for PM10 Measurement

Nowadays, the air quality has become one of the most important problem in modern cities. The particulate matters in the air represents one of the principal causes of respiratory problems. The industrial products and the vehicular traffic had contributed to several phenomena in the increasing of atmospheric pollutants as ammonia, carbon dioxide, PM and so on. Although the importance regarding the monitoring of this substances, in the European countries still be a low number of air quality measurement stations probably due to the high cost of them and the not neglectable dimensions. However, in recent years, low-cost sensors for the air-quality have grown up in several private applications. These sensors are characterized by poor metrological performances that not enable the use of them in a public scenario agreeing with the European law in term of air quality. The authors, in this paper, present a possible integration of a low-cost air quality sensors for the monitoring of PM10 particles in a modern short-range Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) usually adopted in Smart Cities for Smart Metering applications (Gas and Water). The use of a high number of those sensors, thanks to the WSN, will be used to make up for the lack of measurement quality exhibited by the single sensor. The feasibility of the proposal will be demonstrated against the real measurement of two fixed air quality station in Campania region (Italy).