Machine Learning (ML) boosts performance of low-cost air quality sensors
Affordable Air Quality Monitoring for Ports & Harbours
South Coast Science is delighted to announce the Praxis/Urban is currently in use as part of a CIEH (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health) funded project, taking place in New York City. It aims to support communities most at risk due to environmental pollutants and uses a Praxis/Urban unit to review data output from lower-cost, consumer level particulate monitors.
Professor Charlie Mydlarz selected the Praxis/Urban for this pilot project, which is part of his work at the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and the Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL). The pilot aims to create a prototype for community-led monitoring of environmental pollutants by and for at-risk populations. It is motivated by research findings which show Asian American communities are exposed to higher levels of noise and particulate pollution than other communities; this exposure is linked to health conditions such as increased blood pressure and hypertension.
Air quality monitoring data for community health and wellbeing
This programme, to mitigate exposure to traffic pollutants (e.g. particulate matter and noise), is the first of its kind. Using low-cost, low power and infrastructure independent sensors, the aim is to create a prototype that can be deployed and managed by local residents. Sensing devices are located in Sunset Park, Brooklyn which is bisected by the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and Chinatown-Manhattan, which is overshadowed by the Manhattan Bridge.
The Praxis/Urban has been collocated with a consumer-level particulate monitor on the roof of NYU’s Brooklyn building. The role of the Praxis is to determine if the project’s low-cost, consumer level monitors are able to deliver the data accuracy required for this project.
You can see the array of devices in the image below, provided by Professor Mydlarz.
“We are proud to be supporting at-risk and underrepresented communities through this project, as we know significant inequality exists in terms of public health scrutiny applied to urban pollution. We look forward to seeing the full data set from the project to understand the performance of consumer level particulate monitors compared with a certified instrument like the Praxis/Urban.”
David Johnson, Sales Director at South Coast Science
To find out more about Praxis monitoring products visit the South Coast Science website, or contact David Johnson, Sales Director.
Featured photo at top of page by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash
