A real-time ambient air quality monitoring wireless sensor network for schools in smart cities

Monitoring ambient (outdoor) air quality in school surroundings is of great importance for the health of school children. To help schools in smart cities to assess whether ambient air exposure is unhealthy for school children, in this paper, we present a low-cost solar-powered air quality monitoring system based on ZigBee wireless network system technology. The solar powered network sensor nodes can be deployed by schools to collect and report real-time data on carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), dust particles, temperature, and relative humidity. The proposed system allows schools to monitor air quality conditions on a desktop/laptop computer through an application designed using LabVIEW and provides an alert if the air quality characteristics exceed acceptable levels. The sensor network was successfully tested at the Singapore campus of the University of Newcastle, Australia. The experimental results obtained demonstrate that the sensor network can provide high-quality air quality measurements over a wide range of CO, NO₂ and dust concentrations.