Development of a Performance Evaluation Protocol for Air Sensors Deployed on a Google Street View Car

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Sensor Technology
• Air Quality Monitoring

Background:

• Existing performance evaluation for low-cost sensors (LCS) primarily addresses stationary applications.
• Mobile deployment of LCS for air quality monitoring is a growing use-case lacking standardized evaluation protocols.
• Ensuring data quality for mobile LCS is critical for community monitoring and complementing regulatory efforts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and pilot-test the first evaluation protocol for LCS used in mobile deployments.
• To assess LCS performance under various environmental conditions and deployment configurations.
• To provide guidance on appropriate LCS selection and configurations for mobile air quality monitoring.

Main Methods:

• Development of a novel evaluation protocol for ground-based mobile platforms.
• Comparison of LCS against reference-grade instruments during mobile testing.
• Assessment of LCS performance in controlled environments (sampling duct) and uncontrolled environments (vehicle rooftop).
• Investigation of factors such as sensor siting, orientation, and vehicle velocity on LCS performance.

Main Results:

• Pilot-testing revealed unexpected performance effects of LCS in mobile configurations.
• The protocol quantifies LCS performance and the impact of deployment variables.
• Results offer insights not obtainable from traditional stationary testing.

Conclusions:

• The developed protocol is essential for evaluating LCS in mobile air quality monitoring applications.
• Understanding the influence of siting, orientation, and velocity is key to reliable mobile LCS data.
• This work supports the advancement of mobile sensing for community air quality assessment.