AirQuality

Initial situation

Air quality exposure to pollutants is a relevant issue for many cities. Across Germany, formal monitoring of air pollutants is carried out with the help of approximately 450 stationary, local measuring stations. While these are characterized by very high accuracy, they have high acquisition costs, are not mobile, and thus can only record individual, fragmented measurement points within a city.

To create transparency about air quality throughout an urban area, a tightly meshed network of air quality sensors is lacking, so that local problem areas can be identified in real time.

Solution approach

To implement the project, 15 public transport buses in the citie of Aachen will be equipped with the necessary sensor technology.

The air quality data collected with the help of the fleets will be uploaded to a cloud and visualized in the form of a "heat map" on the city maps. The software and hardware used to transmit the measurement and GPS data builds on Geotab GmbH's existing fleet management system

Expected result

The goal of the AirQuality research project is to develop fine-granular, real-time air quality maps. To this end, a low-cost, mobile sensor network will be developed to collect current air quality data. The sensors will be installed on fleet vehicles so that a dense network of measurement points can be achieved.

In addition, use cases are being developed for the use of the acquired air quality data in cities.

Benefits for the target group

The use cases will be discussed and evaluated together with the partner cities in order to develop digital, data-based business models for the sustainable improvement of air quality in cities.

Further Links:

UdZ-Article: "AirQuality: Mobile IoT Network Collects Air Quality Data in Real Time"