Development of a low cost optical PM sensor based on Arduino platform for real time monitoring

Air pollution is a critical public health problem that has increased during the last decades. High levels of air pollution have affected natural environments and cities around the world, including people's health, causing significant problems and, in severe cases, premature death. A growing trend called "Personal air monitoring", has become important for prevention and reduction of exposure to lethal pollutants that affect health. The development of personal PM sensors is still a topic of study among the scientific community. Some important identified challenges are precision, stability, complicated calibration procedures, dimensions and costs that are not affordable for people who seek constant monitoring of air quality in their daily environment. This work proposes the development of a low-cost PM sensor that will operate on the principle of light scattering from a laser source to count the number of particles in real time using the Arduino platform and wireless transmission. Results were obtained by performing smoke test measurements to demonstrate the sensor's operation. In addition, particulate matter (PM) measurements were compared with a commercial PM monitor; R software was used to estimate the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to validate the accuracy of the sensor. The development of new sensors, technology assimilation and cost reduction could make these sensors more accessible to a larger population and represent a high impact and benefit against health problems caused by air pollution.