Automated Classification of Airborne Pollen using Neural Networks

Pollen allergies are considered as a global epidemic nowadays, as they influence more than a quarter of the worldwide population, with this percentage expected to rapidly increase because of ongoing climate change. To date, alerts on high-risk allergenic pollen exposure have been provided only via forecasting models and conventional monitoring methods that are laborious. The aim of this study is to develop and evaluate our own pollen classification model based on deep neural networks. Airborne allergenic pollen have been monitored in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany, since 2015, using a novel automatic Bio-Aerosol Analyzer (BAA 500, Hund GmbH). The automatic classification system is compared and evaluated against our own, newly developed algorithm. Our model achieves an unweighted average precision of 83.0 % and an unweighted average recall of 77.1 % across 15 classes of pollen taxa. Automatic, real-time information on concentrations of airborne allergenic pollen will significantly contribute to the implementation of timely, personalized management of allergies in the future. It is already clear that new methods and sophisticated models have to be developed so as to successfully switch to novel operational pollen monitoring techniques serving the above need.