Novel Solutions for Smart Cities—Creating Air Pollution Maps Based on Intelligent Sensors

Abstract

The paper presents novel solutions for systems used to create air pollutions maps in smart cities. Ability to record pollution levels with a function of a short-term prediction of their fluctuations may be useful for cyclists and pedestrians moving through the city. Based on such data they can choose their route through the city in such a way, as to avoid the most polluted areas. Systems of this type are in the range of solutions characteristic for smart cities. Their effectiveness requires a relatively dense wireless sensor network (WSN) composed of miniaturized and cheap intelligent pollution sensors, capable not only of data recording and transmitting, but also of some data processing with the prediction abilities. Sensors of this type require a development of various circuit components that feature small sizes and ultra-low energy consumption. One of the main blocks, in this case, should be an artificial neural network (ANN) implemented at the transistor level. In this work, we present prototype circuits designed by us for the described purposes. The realized blocks include a finite impulse response (FIR) filter, programmable analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) with internal controlling clock generators and main building blocks of a parallel ANN. The specialized chips (ASIC - application specific integrated circuit) with the described components were implemented in the CMOS technology in the full custom style.