10th International Aerosol Conference
September 2 - September 7, 2018
America's Center Convention Complex
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Abstract View


Cloud-based Application to Manage Data from Distributed Air Quality Sensors Networks

BRANDON FEENSTRA, Ross Cheung, Vasileios Papapostolou, Andrea Polidori, South Coast Air Quality Management District

     Abstract Number: 1288
     Working Group: Low-Cost and Portable Sensors

Abstract
Distributed networks of small air quality sensors are now a reality. Technological advances in low-cost aerosol and gas pollutant sensors have provided the opportunity to build large networks of sensors to measure concentrations of air pollutants. In one year, a single air quality sensor can generate more than 2 million measurements, requiring time changes, time averaging, time matching, joining, validations, and calibrations. Environmental air quality projects quickly become a data science and/or computer science project with a new set of challenges in data storage and analysis. Establishing networks of sensors requires a significant investment in new infrastructures to handle the data load. The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) is poised to deploy over 500 low-cost sensors by end of 2018. To meet the needs of this oncoming data generation, the SCAQMD has started building a reliable and scalable cloud-based platform to ingest, persist, analyze, and visualize substantial quantities of air quality monitoring data. We will present an approach to go from Internet-of-Things (IoT) connected air quality sensors to an online data dashboard for public consumption. Data work-flows and best practices will be discussed along with data validation and sensor calibrations.