24
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Development and Validation of a UAV Based System for Air Pollution Measurements

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Air quality data collection near pollution sources is difficult, particularly when sites are complex, have physical barriers, or are themselves moving. Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer new approaches to air pollution and atmospheric studies. However, there are a number of critical design decisions which need to be made to enable representative data collection, in particular the location of the air sampler or air sensor intake. The aim of this research was to establish the best mounting point for four gas sensors and a Particle Number Concentration (PNC) monitor, onboard a hexacopter, so to develop a UAV system capable of measuring point source emissions. The research included two different tests: (1) evaluate the air flow behavior of a hexacopter, its downwash and upwash effect, by measuring air speed along three axes to determine the location where the sensors should be mounted; (2) evaluate the use of gas sensors for CO 2, CO, NO 2 and NO, and the PNC monitor (DISCmini) to assess the efficiency and performance of the UAV based system by measuring emissions from a diesel engine. The air speed behavior map produced by test 1 shows the best mounting point for the sensors to be alongside the UAV. This position is less affected by the propeller downwash effect. Test 2 results demonstrated that the UAV propellers cause a dispersion effect shown by the decrease of gas and PN concentration measured in real time. A Linear Regression model was used to estimate how the sensor position, relative to the UAV center, affects pollutant concentration measurements when the propellers are turned on. This research establishes guidelines on how to develop a UAV system to measure point source emissions. Such research should be undertaken before any UAV system is developed for real world data collection.

          Related collections

          Most cited references20

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: found
          Is Open Access

          A Survey on Gas Sensing Technology

          Sensing technology has been widely investigated and utilized for gas detection. Due to the different applicability and inherent limitations of different gas sensing technologies, researchers have been working on different scenarios with enhanced gas sensor calibration. This paper reviews the descriptions, evaluation, comparison and recent developments in existing gas sensing technologies. A classification of sensing technologies is given, based on the variation of electrical and other properties. Detailed introduction to sensing methods based on electrical variation is discussed through further classification according to sensing materials, including metal oxide semiconductors, polymers, carbon nanotubes, and moisture absorbing materials. Methods based on other kinds of variations such as optical, calorimetric, acoustic and gas-chromatographic, are presented in a general way. Several suggestions related to future development are also discussed. Furthermore, this paper focuses on sensitivity and selectivity for performance indicators to compare different sensing technologies, analyzes the factors that influence these two indicators, and lists several corresponding improved approaches.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            Violin Plots: A Box Plot-Density Trace Synergism

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Indoor aerosols: from personal exposure to risk assessment.

              Motivated by growing considerations of the scale, severity, and risks associated with human exposure to indoor particulate matter, this work reviewed existing literature to: (i) identify state-of-the-art experimental techniques used for personal exposure assessment; (ii) compare exposure levels reported for domestic/school settings in different countries (excluding exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and particulate matter from biomass cooking in developing countries); (iii) assess the contribution of outdoor background vs indoor sources to personal exposure; and (iv) examine scientific understanding of the risks posed by personal exposure to indoor aerosols. Limited studies assessing integrated daily residential exposure to just one particle size fraction, ultrafine particles, show that the contribution of indoor sources ranged from 19% to 76%. This indicates a strong dependence on resident activities, source events and site specificity, and highlights the importance of indoor sources for total personal exposure. Further, it was assessed that 10-30% of the total burden of disease from particulate matter exposure was due to indoor-generated particles, signifying that indoor environments are likely to be a dominant environmental factor affecting human health. However, due to challenges associated with conducting epidemiological assessments, the role of indoor-generated particles has not been fully acknowledged, and improved exposure/risk assessment methods are still needed, together with a serious focus on exposure control. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Academic Editor
                Journal
                Sensors (Basel)
                Sensors (Basel)
                sensors
                Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
                MDPI
                1424-8220
                21 December 2016
                December 2016
                : 16
                : 12
                : 2202
                Affiliations
                [1 ]International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (ILAQH), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), 2 George St, Brisbane QLD 4000, Australia; tf.villa@ 123456hdr.qut.edu.au
                [2 ]Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7000, Australia; farhad.salimi@ 123456utas.edu.au
                [3 ]Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), 2 George St, Brisbane QLD 4000, Australia; kye.morton@ 123456hdr.qut.edu.au (K.M.); felipe.gonzalez@ 123456qut.edu.au (F.G.)
                Author notes
                [* ]Correspondence: l.morawska@ 123456qut.edu.au ; Tel.: +61-7-3138-2616
                Article
                sensors-16-02202
                10.3390/s16122202
                5191180
                28009820
                d204f89a-409d-4dcc-8d35-fefacf736e36
                © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

                This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                : 23 November 2016
                : 19 December 2016
                Categories
                Article

                Biomedical engineering
                uav remote gas sensing,downwash effect,air quality,hexacopter,optical sensor,air pollution,particle number concentration monitor

                Comments

                Comment on this article