Balluino: High Altitude IOT Based Real Time Air Quality Management System Using Balloon/Drone

Soumil Shah, Zhaopeng Xu, Diya Peng, Tong Zuo, Jani Pallis, Xingguo Xiong
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT 06604

Abstract
System Implementation
Internet of Things paradigm originates from the proliferation of intelligent devices that
can sense, compute and communicate data streams in a ubiquitous information and
communication network. Degradation of air quality in cities is the result of a complex
interaction between natural and anthropogenic environmental conditions. With the
increase in urbanization and industrialization and due to poor control on emissions
and little use of catalytic converters, a great amount of particulate and toxic gases are
produced. It is important to monitor the air pollution for better protection of human
health. In this poster, a high altitude drone/balloon based open source pollution
monitoring system is developed. We integrated multiple sensors (e.g. gas,
temperature, humidity, pressure and altitude sensors) with popular Arduino
microcontroller platform. The measured air pollution data can be logged into microSD
Figure 3. Device to monitor Temperature and
card. The data can also be uploaded to cloud server for real-time processing. This Humidity Figure 4. Device to monitor Figure 5. Device to monitor
research project enables us to monitor the air pollution level and identify the origin of Pm 2.5 and PM10 Particles
pressure, altitude
air pollution using quadcopter or balloon based aerial platform.

Introduction
•The environmental problems are growing rapidly. Air pollutants from cars, buses and Figure 6. Long range RF
trucks, particularly ground-level ozone and particulate matter can worsen respiratory communication modules
diseases and trigger asthma attacks. Transportation can be responsible for more than could send data up to 50
50 percent of carbon monoxide in the air. This carbon monoxide can play havoc on km
human health. The air pollution may lead to Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
(COPD) and escalate risk of cancer.

•Internet of Things (IoT) may become helpful in cities for monitoring air pollution.
These contaminants may be classified as being either anthropogenic (result from
human activities) or caused by natural events (such as fire, eruption) or resulting by
decomposition of organic compound regardless of their origin.
•Pollutants can be divided into two types: primary pollutant and secondary pollutants.

•Primary pollutants, such as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and halogen compounds. They
Measurement Results
are released directly into the atmosphere from sources, and have high health impacts.

•Secondary pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, hydrogen peroxide, ozone, sulfate

and nitrate aerosols. They are not directly emitted. These pollutants are formed by
atmospheric chemical processes acting upon primary pollutants, and event other
gaseous species (non pollutant) in the atmosphere. The environmental impact of the
air pollutants is relatively less harmful.

Proposed Solution Figure 7. Measured temperature vs time Figure 8. Measured carbon monoxide (in PPM)

• We developed a hybrid system that can work with and without internet efficiently. PPM

When the drone is in the air it shall send data to cloud server and we can monitor the
data live through apps on smart phone. The data is also stored in form of .csv file on a
cloud server. In case when Internet fails, the portable data logging will capture data in
microSD card. The microSD card can later be inserted into computer and all data can
be analyzed in form of graph and charts.
• We used Arduino Nano as portable Data logging system along with microSD card
reader to record samples. For internet based data logging we used NodeMCU
module. It has ESP8266 core along with all sensors to fetch the data to cloud server.
We decided to use Blynk app since it is open source and features are explained in
software part.
• We monitored temperature, humidity, pressure, altitude and few atmospheric gases Figure 9. Measured level of Ammonia gas in ppm Figure 10. Measured level of Hydrogen gas in ppm
like Ammonia (NH3), Carbon monooxide (CO), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Propane(C3H8),
Hydrogen(H2), Butane (C4H10), Ethanol (C2H5OH), Methane (CH4) etc.
• Based on the results we plot the graphs of all gases and map the air pollution of
particular area using Drone or Balloons. These result can help us know the pollution of
particular area and the measured data can be adopted to control the air pollution to
minimize its threat to human health.

Systems Block Diagram

Figure 11. Measured humidity level Figure 12. Levels of Pm 10

Figure 1. Block diagram of drone/balloon based PM2.5 remote sensing system Figure 13. Measured PM2.5 level Figure 14. Measured pressure level

Figure 2. Flying drone carrying the payload
Conclusion
In this poster, we used high altitude balloon or drone to measure several gases and
other parameters including temperature, humidity, pressure, altitude, PM2.5, PM10,
carbon monoxide, ammonia, hydrogen, etc. These data will help us to plot heat map
which will tell from where these pollution come from. Based upon that preventive
measures to control the air pollution can be suggested. Future work would include
performing machine learning to predict source of this pollution and enabling drone-to-
drone communication for efficient mapping of PM2.5 and PM10 in air pollution.