Array of Things: Characterizing low-cost air quality sensors for a
city-wide instrument
Abstract
The Array of Things (AoT) is a collaborative effort among leading
scientists, universities, local government and communities in Chicago to
collect real-time data on the city’s environment, infrastructure, and
activity for research and public use. The AoT is composed of nodes that
will measure and sense the urban environment of Chicago and provide
openly accessible data in near real time. One component of each node is
the ChemSense board, which uses chemical sensors to measure five
gas-phase species: ozone, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur
dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. In addition, the ChemSense board provides
information on total reducing gases and total oxidizing gases. The nodes
also include meteorological information and cameras that will provide
pedestrian and traffic counts using computer vision algorithms. Because
the ChemSense boards rely on low-cost sensors, characterizing the sensor
responses is critical to understanding the applicability of the AoT for
urban air quality issues. As a first step, a node with the ChemSense
board was installed at an EPA air quality monitoring site within the
City of Chicago, which is run by the Cook County Department of
Environment and Sustainability. The EPA site has Federal Reference
Method monitors for ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. After
collecting collocation data for seven months, the results are promising
for ozone, but much less so for sulfur dioxide. For nitrogen dioxide,
unexplained spikes not observed in the EPA data drive a poor fit.
Results from the collocation project will be used to consider larger
issues for characterizing the air quality component of the AoT.