A GPS Based Unmanned Drone Technology for Detecting and Analyzing Air Pollutants

Abstract

Air pollution is now becoming a global issue because it directly affects human health, by creating cancer, respiratory and cardiac diseases, and the earth's ecosystem, by causing climate change and depletion of ozone layers. The rapid expansion of civilization and industrialization, leading to hazardous emissions from automobiles, chemical industries, and fossil fuel burning, plays a significant role in air and atmospheric pollution. Unmanned aerial systems and the internet of things-based sensing devices have provided new impetus for automatic air pollution monitoring and analysis. In this paper, an automatic indoor and outdoor air quality monitoring system has been developed using an unmanned aerial vehicle: a drone. The proposed device is constructed from an ultra-strength DJI F450 frame, various gas sensors, a particulate matter detector, and a camera to detect and distinguish air pollution data. The precision and sensitivity of the proposed device have been evaluated by collecting air emissions data from two places in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The drone has been navigated in Uttara and Bashundhara areas to measure the amount of CO, CO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> , O <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</inf> , SO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> , NOx, and dust in indoor and outdoor environments. We obtained higher air pollution concentrations in Uttara than in Bashundhara, as it is an area with more industries and construction sites. The proposed system composed of an uncrewed aerial device and low-cost gas monitoring sensors is expected to create new possibilities in environmental and air pollution monitoring.