INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS

Real-time urban air pollution monitoring using unmanned aerial vehicles

  • 1 Faculty of Technical Sciences, University “St. Kliment Ohridski” Bitola, N. Macedonia

Abstract

Measuring pollutant gases for real-time air quality monitoring is a challenging task that claims a lot of time of observation and large numbers of sensors [1]. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with different micro-sensors have been introduced for air quality monitoring, as they can offer new approaches and research opportunities in air pollution and emission monitoring instead of ground-based monitoring systems [2]. UAVs with mobile monitoring devices are an effective, flexible and alternative mean to collect air pollutant concentration data [3]. Hence, deployment of a fleet of UAVs could be considered as an acceptable alternative for the purpose of air monitoring [4]. The aim of this paper is to elaborate performance capabilities of UAVs for effective monitoring of air pollution, providing the ability to measure air pollutants with high sensitivities.

Keywords

References

  1. Al-Hajjaji, K., Ezzin, M. et al, Design, development and evaluation of a UAV to study air quality in Qatar, Senior design project report, Department of electrical engineering, Qatar University, 2017, p.61.
  2. Villa, T., F., Gonzalez, F. et al, An overview of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for air quality measurements:
  3. present applications and future prospectives, Sensors 2016, 16, 1072; doi:10.3390/s16071072, p. 29.
  4. Babaan, J., B., Ballori, J., P., et al, Estimation of PM2.5 vertical distribution using customized UAV and mobile sensors in Brgy, Up campus, Dilman, Quezon city, The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLII- 4/W9, 2018, p. 15, International Conference on Geomatics and Geospatial Technology (GGT 2018), 3–5 September 2018, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
  5. Alvear, O., Zema, N., R, et al, Using UAV-based systems to monitor air pollution in areas with poor accessibility, Journal of Advanced Transportation, Hindawi Publishing Corporation, 2017, pp.1-14.
  6. Gu, Q., Michanowicz, R., D., Jia, C., Developing a modular Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platform for air pollution profiling, Sensors 2018, 18, 4363; doi:10.3390/s18124363, p. 14.
  7. Koutroumpas, A., Use of UAV for 3D visualization of air pollutants in urban areas, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece, 2017, p. 101.
  8. Gallacher, D., Drone applications for environmental management in urban spaces: a review, International Journal of Sustainable Land Use and Urban Planning [IJSLUP], ISSN 1927-8845, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 1-14, 2016.
  9. Alvear, O., Calafate, T., C., et al, A discretized approach to air pollution monitoring using UAV-based sensing, Mobile Networks and Applications (2018) 23:1693–1702, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-018-1065-4.
  10. Yaoa, Y., Weia, S., et al., Application of UAV in monitoring chemical pollutant gases, Chemical engineering transactions, Vol. 67, 2018, pp. 583-588, ISBN978-88- 95608-64-8; ISSN 2283-9216.

Article full text

Download PDF