The Raspberry Pi and its Usage for Air Quality Monitor Project

Savannah Limarenko
Introduction

Since the beginning of human history, technology has been developed to help improve

day-to-day life. Starting from making tools that made farming an easier task to the Industrial

Revolution and the expansion of electricity, technology has rapidly changed over the years.

Technology has grown much more advanced over the centuries, and in today’s day and age there

are many aspects of technology both internal and external, that did not previously exist. There

are the physical components to technology which must be arranged in the correct order and taken

care of in order to run properly. Then in the modern day and what is typically thought of as

technology, there is code that tells the physical components what to do. Due to this, the internal

and external are deeply connected. A prime example of working with these two aspects of

computing is a Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi’s have incredible computing power and can be used to

make many interesting projects. For any of these projects to work it is necessary to combine

software and hardware. One such project, that highlights the use of both software and hardware,

that will be explored in this paper is an air quality monitor by David Gherghita and Ioan

Herisanu.

What is a Raspberry Pi?

To begin with, what is a Raspberry Pi? From the Raspberry Pi foundation a Raspberry Pi

is defined as “a low cost, credit-card sized computer” (Raspberry Pi, 2023). It is a single circuit

board that contains all the hardware necessary to function as a computer. Though, this circuit is

not like the computers that most people are used to. Typically, laptops or desktops are what

people consider computers. However, a Raspberry Pi has all the same functionality as a typical
computer. All that the user needs to do is simply plug it into a standard monitor and get to work.

As a matter of fact, all the coding necessary for a project can be done directly on the Raspberry

Pi. This computer also comes with many additions that just a circuit including “USB-C and other

power supplies and camera modules” (DigitalTrends, 2022). These accessories make the

Raspberry Pi much more powerful in its capabilities, than if it did not have these accessories.

A Raspberry Pi like all modern computers has a specific architecture design. This mostly

includes a CPU, GPU, I/O components, as well as some form of storage. Across the various

models of Raspberry Pi’s, they all have a Broadcom BCM2835 chip, with a ARMv6 single core

processor, a Dual Core VideoCore IV Multimedia Co-Processor GPU (Lor & Zheng). The Arm

CPU processors use RISC architectures, which are used often nowadays in smaller computers

such as phones (ARM, 2023). RISC processors use simpler instructions which make them easier

to decode, meaning less transistors are necessary (Ivankov, 2020). This has a particular

advantage for the Raspberry Pi given its small size, the less hardware necessary the better.

The next important component to consider in any computer is storage. According to the

book “Learning Computer Architecture with Raspberry Pi”, a Raspberry Pi uses a “format flash

card for its primary non-volatile storage” (Upton et al., 2016). This essentially means something

like an SD card, USB thumb drive, etc… The Raspberry Pi storage specifically is either in the

form of an SD Card or a Micro SD Card. It has very little RAM capabilities since it is considered

to be a microcomputer. Because of this the use of SD cards in the system becomes invaluable

with how much more storage is added to the overall system (DigitalTrends, 2022).

Lastly, it is pertinent to consider the input/output capabilities of a Raspberry Pi. In an

average Raspberry Pi, there are many input/output possibilities. It contains an HDMI jack, a

3.5mm audio jack, camera interface ports, as well as ethernet and USB slots (Lor & Zheng). It
becomes evident quite quickly that there is a large variety of input and output options available

to the user. This once again makes the Raspberry Pi a powerful tool as it can handle many types

of inputs and outputs, and is not being limited by the fact that it can’t take certain types of input.

What Development Tools Does a Raspberry Pi Use?

Now that it has been made clear how a Raspberry Pi works, it is time to discuss the tools

necessary to develop a project. A Raspberry Pi can run many different operating systems. Among

these there is “Raspbian OS, Ubuntu Mate…LibreElec, the non-Linux based Risc OS… also run

Windows 10 IoT Core” (Heath, 2019). However, Raspbian is the often the most recommended

operating system from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Due to the Raspberry Pi’s capabilities, it can

be used in a variety of different languages, and therefore many IDE’s. There is Geany, which is

like a text editor and can be used with a variety of languages, similar to Notepad on the windows

system. There is also BlueJ to be used specifically with Java, as well as Thonny for Python and

Code::Blocks for C and C++ (Wate, 2021). The fact that a Raspberry Pi can be programmed

using a variety of different languages makes it a powerful tool especially for those just learning

to code for the first time. It gives the user flexibility in what they want to use, which is powerful

to be able to learn how to code similar projects in an array of different languages. While it is

necessary to have somewhat of a background in coding in order to use a Raspberry Pi, it is

mostly beginner friendly.

The project that this paper will choose to focus on, the Air Quality Monitor uses the Rust

Programming Languages, specifically Python, Microsoft Azure, and Yocto Project for the

development of the project. The reason that these applications were chosen for this project

mostly relies on the hardware. The hardware used Azure to upload its data into a cloud, that was

then able to be read using the Rust language (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020).
Development of a Project

There are many ways to develop a project using a Raspberry Pi. In order to start any

project there is some necessary hardware. To be able to code, a monitor will be needed to hook

up to the Raspberry Pi as well as a mouse and keyboard (Schooneveld, 2020). This means that by

extension HDMI cables will be required, otherwise there would be no way to actually hook up

the Raspberry Pi to the monitor and keyboard. The last thing that will be necessary in order to

start a project will be a power supply. This will typically be hooked up using the USB port on the

Raspberry Pi (Schooneveld, 2020).

Choosing a project and starting it can be very difficult to do. However, due to the

Raspberry Pi’s increasing popularity over the years, many companies have built project kits that

can be purchased instead of starting completely from scratch. These project kits are a great

introduction to using a Raspberry Pi. In fact, there are many advantages to using a project kit.

Project kits do one of the hardest parts of a project, which is coming up with the idea for a

project. Often when just learning to program it can be difficult to come up with a project, these

kits help to take away that pressure. Project kits also come with all the necessary materials to

build a project with a Raspberry Pi. When starting out, not everyone has access to the necessary

materials for a project. These kits make it much easier to know that the user has all the proper

materials. The last advantage of using a project kit is it comes with step-by-step instructions

(ScienceBuddies, 2023). When getting started it can be very overwhelming to know where to

start, and how to develop a project if you have never done so before. Kits provide instructions so

that the skills necessary to do projects in the future can be learned, such as hooking up the

Raspberry Pi, or connecting wires properly.

 However, projects kits are far from the only option when deciding to build a Raspberry Pi

project. In fact, many of those who are more experienced will make their project from the ground

up. This often means using breadboards. “A breadboard is an essential tool when building

circuits. It allows you to quickly prototype your circuit without having to solder components

together” (Schooneveld, 2020). This fact that you do not have to solder together components

makes a breadboard very powerful. It also means that if there were a mistake to occur, or just

when the user is done with a project and wants to reuse the materials, they can easily be

disassembled and rebuilt. Since Raspberry Pi’s are meant to be used for learning purposes, the

breadboard is a great base for any Raspberry Pi project.

The Air Quality Monitor project uses a breadboard (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020). It was

made for those who have more experience using a Raspberry Pi, so the need for a kit is

diminished. Another reason that a breadboard may have been preferred for this type of project is

to make it easier to connect the Raspberry Pi to the sensor that gathers the information on the air

quality. Using a breadboard simplifies this process tremendously and allows for easier access to

adding additional components to the circuit such as resistors.

Air Quality Monitor Project

The Air Quality Monitor project was designed by David Gherghita and Ioan Herisanu and

uploaded to hackster.io in 2020. The overall concept is described as “Connect a particulate

matter sensor to a Raspberry Pi and obtain easy-to-read graphs based on the read data using

Microsoft Azure” (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020). The reason that this particular project was

chosen for this project was the highlighted interconnection of hardware and software. The focus

of this class. In order to complete this project, it is pertinent that the user knows some

background information on coding and accessing hardware. Though, the article describes in great
detail how to do these things, it will be much easier if the user already has some background

knowledge.

Before the project can begin there were materials required to build it. (Gherghita and

Herisanu list these materials at the beginning of the article. They used Sensirion SPS30 for their

sensor, a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, a generic breadboard, jumper wires, the Rust Programming

Language, Microsoft Azure, and Yocto Project (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020). It is clear that

there are many internal and external components to be taken into consideration here. Listing out

the materials here is very helpful to the reader who most likely hopes to build this project. It is

like how recipes will list all the necessary ingredients at the beginning of the recipe, making it

easier for others to follow along, something that is a good practice in the science field. It should

be as easy as possible to follow along with what someone else has done.

The first step of this project is to build the circuit with the Raspberry Pi. The circuit itself

is labeled in Figure 1 (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020). This circuit was built using a standard

breadboard. The circuit mainly consists of connecting to the proper pins of the Raspberry Pi to

the resistors on the breadboard, that the wires of the sensor were then connected to. It is a pretty

simple circuit all things considered.

Figure 1: Sensor Circuit Connecting to Raspberry Pi

From there, the next step was to code the Raspberry Pi. It is important to note that before

the coding could commence, Gherghita and Herisanu had to “build a minimal Linux distribution

using the Yocto project” (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020). How they managed to do this was

complicated at best. They needed to “Clone the Raspberry Pi BSP…Build and copy the image to

the SD card using the instructions from the repo…” (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020). Linked in the

article are the github links necessary to find the Raspberry Pi BSP and so on. Which once again

comes back to making the project easily replicable, as they provide quick and easy links to their

references.

Once the Linux system was built by Gherghita and Herisanu the next steps were to read

the data, then send that data into the cloud (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020). Using Microsoft

Azure, they were then able to add the sensor to the cloud. This was done by clicking on IoT

devices and adding a new device, which is very straightforward (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020).

The Rust and Python code provided in Figure 2 were then implemented. Essentially, all that code

does is make it so that now the data is being received and is able to be turned into graphs in the

near future. This data can be turned into graphs using “Stream Analytics job of type Power Bi,”

(Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020). The code in order to do this can be found in Figure 3, once again

provided by Gherghita and Herisanu (Gherghita & Herisanu, 2020). That is the end of the

project. It seems rather daunting at first, but once the idea becomes more flushed out, the easier it

seems. There are many moving parts, and many places that it is important to know just how the

software will affect the hardware’s performance. Gherghita and Herisanu, however, do a fantastic
job of making the project easily accessible to a large audience and making coding that much

more approachable.

use linux_embedded_hal::{Delay, I2cdev};

use sps30_i2c::Sps30;

fn main() {
let dev = I2cdev::new("/dev/i2c-1").unwrap();
let delay = Delay;
let mut sensor = Sps30::new_sps30(dev, delay);

let result = sensor.read_measured_values().unwrap();

println!("{}", result.mass_pm1_0);
println!("{}", result.mass_pm2_5);
println!("{}", result.mass_pm4_0);
println!("{}", result.mass_pm10);

println!("{}", result.number_pm0_5);
println!("{}", result.number_pm1_0);
println!("{}", result.number_pm2_5);
println!("{}", result.number_pm4_0);
println!("{}", result.number_pm10);

println!("{}", result.typical_size);
}
#!/usr/bin/python3.8

import os
import asyncio
from azure.iot.device.aio import IoTHubDeviceClient
from azure.iot.device import Message
import time
import subprocess

async def main():

# Connect device to IoT Hub
conn_str = "TODO"
device_client = IoTHubDeviceClient.create_from_connection_string(conn_str)
await device_client.connect()

while True:
# Read data from sensor
cmd = ['sensor-read/target/release/sensor-read']
process = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)

results = []
for line in process.stdout:
results.append(float(line))

# Send message
msg = Message('{\
 "mass_pm1.0": %f,\
"mass_pm2.5": %f,\
"mass_pm4.0": %f,\
"mass_pm10": %f,\
"number_pm0.5": %f,\
"number_pm1.0": %f,\
"number_pm2.5": %f,\
"number_pm4.0": %f,\
"number_pm10": %f,\
"typical_size": %f,\
}' % tuple(results))
await device_client.send_message(msg)

time.sleep(15)

if __name__ == "__main__":
asyncio.run(main())
Figure 2: Rust and Python Code used in Air Quality Monitor

Figure 3: 1 Code to Modify Power Bi for Air Quality Monitor

In conclusion, a Raspberry Pi is a super powerful teaching computer when it comes to

learning about both hardware and software. There are many aspects to it, that make it a

simplified computer to learn with, as well as provide many chances to learn how to build

hardware. Gherghita and Herisanu’s air quality monitor is a prime example of the opportunities

that a Raspberry Pi provides. It shows just how much the hardware and software of a project
relate to together, being the majority of the coding necessary for this project. Raspberry Pi’s are a

great tool for learning to make those connections with both software and hardware.

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