Abstract
Low-cost sensor systems (LCSS) represent a disruptive change in air monitoring, and pose numerous challenges. The Citi-Sense project (http://co.citi-sense.eu) that operated between 2012 and 2016 in nine European cities, provides a vivid illustration. Three use cases were deployed, on ambient air quality, on indoor environment at schools, and on the quality of urban spaces, with at times, over 300 LCSSs in use simultaneously.We aimed at providing air quality information to stakeholders, but without a clear prior idea of the purpose and DQOs: we felt that information generated by LCSSs can support several objectives. Our knowledge as to what are capabilities of the technology was low and expectations were high.Any large-scale use of LCSS requires to deploy two enabling technologies, sensing technology and information and communication technologies for data transmission, storage and use, and has a number of steps. We have deployed LCSS’s from 9 different producers, in a variety of climatic conditions, from Oslo (Norway) to Haifa (Israel), and Edinburg (United Kingdom) to Beograd (Serbia). We thus demonstrate intercomaprison issues as well as the dependency of monitoring results on local conditions. Despite extensive field calibration and co-location, we were not able to quantify uncertainty sufficiently to provide comparable data across locations. However, we successfully developed an accurate real-time map, unavailable using other current methods, addressing the interest in real time information.Using LCSSs as personal monitors has similar challenges as traditional methods, and some new ones. User feedback showed that at this stage (2015), only a special interest group can successfully use the devices.We believe there is a great potential to the LCSSs, but also serious obstacles. Quality assurance and quality control of data needs further development. Correct communication of the results and expectation management are a second main barrier to successful use of LCSS.
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