Real-time air quality monitoring based on locally developed unmanned aerial vehicle and low-cost smart electronic device

This article deals with the development of real-time air quality monitoring based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and low-cost Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This investigation aims to design and develop an UAV-based platform that can monitor a large number of air pollutants in real-time with high spatial and temporal resolution. The proposed environmental monitoring system consists of five main elements, namely the UAV, sensors, data storage module, programmable card, and IoT communication module. Estimated pollutants such as particulate matter (PM2.5) and toxic gases (carbon monoxide CO, nitrogen dioxide NO2, and carbon dioxide CO2) are detected by low-cost sensors. The ZigBee wireless protocol is used for communication between the PC and UAV. This work is carried out to assess the air quality in urban areas, given the heavy road traffic and the emissions of some companies. The data analyzed were collected from December 2, 2022 to January 3, 2023, in two major cities of Cameroon, Douala and Kribi. The periodic average values of the detected pollutants are 222 ± 22 μg/m3  and 85.7 ± 8.6 μg/m3 for PM2.5, 560.8 ± 1.0 ppm and 555.6 ± 1.0 ppm for CO2, 4.2 ± 0.2 ppm and 0.7 ± 0.1 ppm for NO2, and 27.6 ± 2.8 ppm and 4.5 ± 0.5 ppm for CO in Douala and Kribi respectively. This made it possible to have an air quality index (AQI) of 444.2 for Douala City and 171.3 for Kribi City. These high values indicate poor air quality during the measurement period.