Project Summary

Air pollution is a serious issue, with some areas experiencing higher concentrations of pollutants than others. To monitor this, cities require many sensors to measure air quality. The innovation proposed by We Care 4 Air proposes to use low-cost, high-accuracy sensors that could revolutionise air quality monitoring and enable better control of traffic lights, HVAC systems, Sat Nav, and ventilation in the maritime and aviation industries.

Project Achievements

Our project focused on creating a Monitoring system for gas and particles in air on UK roadsides, and miniaturise existing reference grade sensors for use in these monitoring systems. We have designed a system to sample data at a given frequency and automatically record this and upload the data. We produced a prototype and tested the functionality and accuracy of the system. We designed a miniaturised chemiluminescent sensor and tested a prototype.

Conclusions

The monitoring system worked as intended, being a small, cost effective way to measure air pollution. The miniaturised reference grade sensors showed promise, but issues with clogging up means that further work is required to improve these. This system can help us understand how different factors impact air pollution, in both cities and rural locations. This could be used to automate traffic systems to mitigate and avoid high pollution areas.

Next Steps

We are aiming to use this prototype as a platform to build upon, improving the accuracy of the data and adding more features to the system. We have obtained a grant with InnovateUK, and are working together with AI experts to integrate AI into the system. With further work on the miniaturised chemiluminescent sensors, we will hopefully be able to push towards commercialisation for these sensors. Being on the TRIG programme has provided an excellent platform to work with, and develop an understanding of smaller, compact sensors.