Detection of air pollution on the basis of a mobile phone: the development of Germany

In all more or less large industrial city and its surroundings with plenty of air pollution particulate matter. And that, for the most part, a third-party agent works with industry, plus other technological components, decomposition products, formed during combustion and everything else.

In general, all of this - very bad for your health, and in some cities people even have to wear protective masks, especially in the case of the active phase of production and the specific configuration of the wind rose.

Assessment of the quality of air in such places, of course, conducted, but not in all regions and not as often as we would like. The reason - the high cost of analysis and the need to operate regular and mobile laboratories. A few days ago, German scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology offered his decision .

This solution - a small module for mobile phone, which assesses the quality of the air using the camera and flash unit. Of course, to use the module in the phone without a camera without flash will not work.

The module itself is attached to the back of the smartphone with the magnet, with the opening of the module should be placed on the flash and camera smartphone.

Everything works quite simply. A man presses a button "take a photo" (sticking with the flash mode), the flash fires, and the light from it enters the fiber optic sensor camera.



The module also has a passive air intake through which the light passes and the flash, before getting on the camera lens. The larger suspended particles in the selected sample of air - the more light is scattered.

For your module (his body, by the way, printed on a 3D printer) scientists have developed and the corresponding application that analyzes the camera image by calculating the number of particles in the air to the brightness of pixels to produce an image. According to experts, the brightness of the pixels in the image allows relatively precise estimates of air pollution, which was developed by a special algorithm.



After testing his own instrument scientists compared the results of research on the state of the atmosphere with the results of research staff stations determine the air quality. The results agreed fairly accurately.

Of course, the unit has limitations. In particular, it can fix atmospheric pollution when the concentration of suspended particles down to 1 microgram per cubic meter. In addition, particles less than 10 microns (a small fraction of the dust - the most dangerous, by the way), is also not yet fixed appliance.

Now scientists are engaged in improving the performance of the device in order to be able to take into account the fine fraction of dust.

According to the developers, their device can be useful to all people, mobile users who are concerned about the quality of the atmosphere of the city. With the help of this device and its annexes could be fast enough mapping of air pollution city / region, and then the results would be provided to the appropriate services.



Article scientists available in .pdf here .

Via mobihealthnews

Source: habrahabr.ru/post/230011/