Smart City Battery Operated IoT Based Indoor Air
Quality Monitoring System
Siavash Esfahani*, Piers Rollins*, Jan Peter Specht*, Marina Cole*, Julian W. Gardner*
*
School of Engineering, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Siavash.Esfahani@warwick.ac.uk; P.Rollins@warwick.ac.uk; J.P.Specht@warwick.ac.uk; Marina.Cole@warwick.ac.uk;
J.W.Gardner@warwick.ac.uk
Abstract—Indoor and outdoor air pollution is known to
cause many health problems. In order to improve air quality it
is essential to monitor relevant parameters and identify sources
of pollutants. This paper presents the design and development
of a low-cost, portable Internet of Things (IoT) Indoor Air
Quality (IAQ) monitoring system with 30 hours of battery life.
The unit is intended for the monitoring of total VOCs, CO2,
PM2.5, PM10, temperature, humidity and illuminance. The
system can be used for both real-time measurements as well as
hourly and daily averaging, in low power modes, and interfaces
with a custom Blynk smartphone app, developed for easy user
engagement. The device calculates a qualitative air quality
index from measurements taken in-situ, based on United States
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards.
Environmental data is used by the system to provide
recommendations, such as increasing ventilation or reducing
activity levels, which can help users improve their air quality.
This system can be used as a node to monitor air quality in
large scale networks for Smart Cities.
Keywords—Air Quality Monitoring; Internet of Things;
Indoor air quality; Cloud Computing Component; Smart Cities
I. INTRODUCTION
In the United Kingdom (UK), people spend an estimated
90% of their time indoors [1]. In recent years, there has been
a growing interest in monitoring and assessing the air quality
within and around buildings/structures, especially as it
relates to the health and comfort of occupants. This is
referred to as indoor air quality (IAQ). Indoor environments
are associated with two to five times more pollutants than the
outdoors [2]. These pollutants include a variety of airborne
contaminants, such as gaseous compounds (volatile organic
compounds – VOCs, and some non-VOCs, like CO2),
particulate matter (PM) and biological sources, e.g. mould.
Short- and long-term exposures to these pollutants are known
to adversely affect the well-being of occupants and have
established links to several serious diseases (e.g. coronary
heart disease – CHD [3], stroke [4], chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease – COPD [5], and lung cancer [6]).
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), air
pollution represents the most significant environmental risk
to health [7]. Air pollution has also been identified as the
most significant environmental health risk in Europe [8]. In
the UK, poor IAQ places a significant burden on the National
Health Service (NHS) and social care system, with an
estimated cost of $1.6 billion, between 2017 and 2025 [9]. In
order to successfully improve IAQ, it is necessary to
effectively monitor and assess pollutants and identify their
sources.
978-1-7281-6801-2/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE
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There are on-going efforts by the UK government to
conduct large-scale outdoor air quality monitoring, through
the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(DEFRA). However, it is also necessary to pursue more local
monitoring, since there can be substantial variations in
pollutants over relatively small distances [10], e.g. busy
roads next to an office. Due to the increased awareness of
IAQ, and continually improving technological capabilities, a
variety of commercial and research monitoring systems have
been developed in the past decade. In this area, the recent
focus has been on ‘smart systems’, which can both gather
and analyse data and perform appropriate
actions/instructions. In the context of IAQ, this relates to
monitoring devices, which can automatically control the
ventilation and air-conditioning systems in order to improve
IAQ, thus in turn improving the health, comfort and well-
being of occupants. The price of commercial IAQ
monitoring systems vary depending on their measurement
and analysis capabilities. Examples include the Foobot
(Airboxlab S.A., USA) and Awair (Bitfinder, USA), which
are popular products in this market and measure parameters
such as temperature, humidity, VOCs, and PM2.5 – fine
particulate matter, with diameters less than 2.5 µm [11].
These products require mains power and are therefore not
portable. Other developments include new air quality-sensing
networks, which interconnect individual personal air
monitoring devices to create ‘smart cities’. The Air Quality
Egg (Wicked Device, USA) and the Smart Citizen Platform
(Acrobotic Industries, USA) are examples of currently
established networks [11]. In these Internet-of-Things (IoT)
networks, each monitoring device functions as a node and
shares IAQ data with the platform via Wi-Fi.
Many commercially-available devices are currently quite
expensive, not portable, cannot connect to smart phones and
do not provide detailed information about the sensors
included within the system (e.g. whether VOCs are measured
using CO2 equivalent units or using a gas sensor with wide
cross-sensitivity to a number of VOCs). Furthermore, their
methods for calculating and rating IAQ are often not fully-
disclosed. In order for IAQ monitors and IAQ-networks to
gain wide-spread adoption in indoor environments (e.g. in
offices and at home), there is a need for two developments to
take place. Firstly, there needs to be more transparency
and/or standardisation regarding how relevant parameters for
IAQ are measured and evaluated. Secondly, IAQ monitors
need to become low-cost, portable, IoT-enabled and easy to
integrate within a smart network. This paper describes the
design and development of such a device and demonstrates
its real-world application.
 II. MATERIALS & METHODS TABLE 1: SENSORS DEPLOYED IN IOT AIR QUALITY MONITORING
Product (Manufacturer)/ Operating Measurement range
Indexes are used to provide the user with a simple and Type Principle (accuracy)
easily understandable measure of air quality. These take all
relevant parameters into account (based on weightings) to BME680 (Bosch)/ Metal oxide Temp: -40‒85°C (±1°C)
Temperature & humidity gas sensor Hum: 0‒100% (±3%)
compute a single value for overall air quality. Currently,
there is no official government IAQ index, but such indexes CCS811 (AMS)/ Metal oxide 0 – 1200 ppb
Total VOC (TVOC) gas sensor (N/A)
have been developed by researchers in the past, for example
for indoor environment quality (IEQ), based on US, UK and Nondispersive
SCD30 (Sensiron)/ 400 – 10000 ppm
infrared
EU exposure guidelines [11]. This paper proposes an indoor Carbon dioxide (CO2)
(NDIR)
(30 ppm + 3%)
air quality index (IAQI) based on guidelines from the US 0 – 1000 μg/m3
SPS30 (Sensiron)/ Laser-based
Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). The US EPA Particulate matter (PM) light scattering (± 10 μg/m3)
index ranges from 0 – 500, where 0 is excellent and 500 is Infrared-
hazardous air quality. Factors considered in this index VEML7700 (Vishay)/ 0 – 167000 lux
responding
include specific VOCs and PM. The proposed IAQI system Illuminance (light) (± 0.005 lux)
photodiode
also considers other parameters related to the indoor
environment, such as illuminance, temperature and humidity.
All 5 IAQ factors (VOC, PM, light, temperature humidity) This provides a flexible design, whereby the sensors can
are compared, using nested max functions, and equally be exchanged or easily replaced. The dimensions of the PCB
weighted to produce the final IAQI score, which is between 0 are 140 mm × 100 mm fit inside the housing (1455N1601,
– 500 (following the concept proposed by the US EPA). Hammond, Canada). The housing was machined to allow
mounting of the fan and switch, light to reach the
The developed IoT air quality monitoring system is illuminance sensor and ventilation air holes. The machined
rechargeable and portable, and can be added to the node in a housing, with PCB, are shown in Fig. 2.
monitoring network. It consists of a low-cost sensor array,
interfaced using I2C, controlled by using a HUZZAH32 The fan, power switch and battery bank are installed
development microcontroller board (Adafruit, USA). This inside the housing. When powered on, the microcontroller
module includes a Wi-Fi module that can send real-time data connects automatically to the Wi-Fi infrastructure, to the
to the server. All the raw data and analysis is stored in the cloud server. It then routes power to the fan and each of the
cloud and can be downloaded by the user, if required. After a sensor individually, setting them into their drive modes (to
value for IAQ has been calculated in the cloud, the value is collect and store data). The data is transmitted from the
sent to the user’s smartphone. Based on the IAQI value, a sensors to the microcontroller and stored in memory. The air
suggestion for improving air quality will appear on the smart quality data is then accessed in the memory of the
phone app. A fan is included to provide air flow through the microcontroller and processed – calculating moving averages
enclosure and over the sensors. A system diagram for the and computing the air quality index. These data are
IAQ-monitoring device is shown in Fig. 1. transmitted to the 3rd party Blynk service, which transmits
the data to the smart phone app, in real-time, and displays it
The list of sensors used within the system, with their to the user.
type, operating principles, measurement ranges and accuracy
are shown in Table 1. The Blynk app has two major advantages. Firstly, it
provides a user-friendly platform, with a clean design, to
The device is powered using 6 × L91 Energizer lithium display the data to the user. Secondly, it provides storage
batteries, with a capacity of around 3000 mAh [59], with 30 space in the cloud to achieve remote monitoring, whereby
hours of battery life, under real-time logging conditions. The everyone has access to the data when required (e.g. historical
battery life can be increased by changing the sampling time. monitoring data). This reduces the amount of physical
Also the system can be powered by USB cable which memory needed in the hardware and eliminates the issue of
chargers the battery at the same time. These were chosen running out of memory (e.g. on an SD card).
due to their high capacity and good response to different
current demands. The microcontroller and sensor array are The design of the custom app is shown in Fig. 3. It has a
mounted onto a custom printed circuit board (PCB), via home screen (with a real-time graph), and multiple tabs,
headers. which can be used to navigate to individual sensor readings
(Fig. 3 – left), or display the overall IAQI score (Fig. 3 –
right).

Fig. 2. Assembled prototype of AQ monitoring system.

Fig. 1. IoT IAQ-monitoring system diagram

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Fig. 3. IoT IAQ-monitoring system Blynk App
A separate tab provides the user with recommendations
on how the IAQI score can be improved, depending on the
pollutant. The recommendations are displayed using an
intuitive colour scheme, following the concept proposed by
the US EPA. A warning tab displays which pollutant the
highest, using 15-minute is averaging. This can be increased
to 8-hr and 24-hr averaging, which are the durations required
for exposure limits to be calculated. From the app, the user
can select two modes, always on or sleep, in which the
device is on for 15-min and then off for 45-min.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Two experiments were conducted to demonstrate that the
developed IoT IAQ-monitoring systems functions as a proof-
of-concept. Measurements of individual IAQ factors and
overall IAQI scores were recorded in two different indoor
environments.
The first test was conducted in one of the computer
laboratories in the School of Engineering, University of
Warwick. During this test, a teaching session with 100
students was in progress. The average overall IAQI score
was 43.8, ranging from 35.5 – 77. Whilst this indicates good
IAQ, the CO2 level was poor. Since the other factors were
good, the factor of CO2 is not weighted enough to indicate
that overall quality is poor – since it was not. This is shown
in Fig. 4.
500
CCS AQI
400 CO2 AQI
PM2.5 AQI
PM10 AQI
Average AQI
300
BME AQI
AQI
200
100
0 This method could then be marketed to companies as a
17:16 17:31 17:45 18:00 18:14
Time(HH:mm)
Fig. 4. Busy Indoor Space (100 occupants)
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500
CCS AQI
CO2 AQI
400 PM2.5 AQI
PM10 AQI
Average AQI
300 BME AQI
AQI
200
100
20:24 20:38 20:52 21:07
Time(HH:mm)
Fig. 5. Indoor Kitchen Environment (1 occupant)
Sampling continued for over 1 hour, during which it was
possible to measure the exposure limits, where maximum of
no more than 1500 ppm is recommended for schools over an
8-hr period. After an hour, the average CO2 dropped to 930
ppm – which is still high, but well within the range of
acceptable safe limits.
The second test was conducted in a kitchen environment,
during which food was being prepared. Cooking has been
linked to increased PM pollution, particularly for meals
involving broiling fish [12]. The duration of this test was also
an hour and involved one-person cooking, with an extraction
fan running. The average IAQI score was 51.18, with
standard deviation 5.07, as shown in Fig. 5.
The cooking activities were completed at 20:47 and the
occupant left the room from that point onwards. Both CO2
levels and TVOC levels were elevated, with CO2 having a
mean of 900 ppm and a standard deviation of 46.1. The level
of CO2 was the main contributor to the increased IAQ factor.
Other factors such as PM2.5 and TVOC levels were also
elevated, but still in acceptable regions.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
This paper describes the design and development of a
prototype for an IoT-enabled IAQ monitoring system, with a
custom app for data logging and user recommendations. An
IAQI has been proposed to present a measure for air quality
to the user. The data can be viewed in real-time or reported
as an hourly or daily average. This prototype system offers
advantages such as improved customization, and flexibility
in selecting various low cost sensors. The total cost of the
device is around $200, with 30 hours of battery life, under
real-time logging conditions. The current prototype includes
a sensor array, which monitors major air pollutants, such as
TVOCs and PM. Additional relevant environmental
parameters, such as humidity, temperature and light are also
monitored, since these relate to the comfort level of the
occupant. By creating a simple IAQ monitoring system, a
wireless sensor network can be made operational, which
would enable robust pollution mapping, with spatial data.
This could enable monitoring of several rooms, on different
floors, feeding data into a central server, tied to a web app.
complete monitoring solution for IAQ. Further work would
involve data security measures, which could be achieved
using SSL or HTTPS.
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