OPen WIreless OzoNe SEnsor NEtwoRk for smart environmental monitoring of remote areas: crossing the Alps along the 12th east meridian on the trail Munich Venice

Informazioni relative al progetto

PIONEER

ID dell’accordo di sovvenzione: 844526

DOI

10.3030/844526

Progetto concluso il 28 Marzo 2024

Data della firma CE 25 Novembre 2019

Data di avvio 24 Novembre 2020

Data di completamento 30 Marzo 2024

Finanziato da

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Costo totale

€ 251 002,56

Contributo UE

€ 251 002,56

Coordinato da

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PIONEER (OPen WIreless OzoNe SEnsor NEtwoRk for smart environmental monitoring of remote areas: crossing the Alps along the 12th east meridian on the trail Munich Venice)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-11-24 al 2023-11-23

Sintesi del contesto e degli obiettivi generali del progetto

The open-source low-cost sensor networks developed through the project PIONEER (https://github.com/theRosyProject/PIONEER) is capable of long-term measurements of earth near surface ozone, in unpolluted and polluted remote (and urban) environments. It will help to assess the impacts of tropospheric ozone on the earth system, human health and ecosystems, and to detect changes in the atmospheric composition which could aggravate or reduce these impacts because of changing ozone precursor emissions or climate change.

Earth surface ozone is highly relevant for the Earth’s climate, ecosystems, and human health: i) it is the third largest contributor to greenhouse radiative forcing after carbon dioxide and methane; ii) it plays a crucial role in tropospheric chemistry as the main precursor for the OH radical which determines the oxidation capacity of the troposphere; iii) it is a toxic air pollutant affecting human health and agriculture, and, through plant damage, it impedes the uptake of carbon into the biosphere.

The final goal of the project is to develop an IoT tool to be used by scientists and citizen engineers for earth monitoring. While the PIONEER goal is focus on the study of ozone, the IoT infrastructure (hardware/software) developed can be reused for monitoring other air pollutants (e.g. aerosol, NOx, VOCs, etc.) or for different projects (e.g. smart agriculture, smart cities, home automation, etc.).

Lavoro eseguito dall’inizio del progetto fino alla fine del periodo coperto dalla relazione e principali risultati finora ottenuti

During his secondment at the University of California, Berkeley, the fellow was involved in research projects and trained in the development of low-cost sensor technologies, wireless sensor networks, project leading and management. He was invited to teach (https://github.com/CenterForTheBuiltEnvironment/R-for-Building-Science) and mentor (https://github.com/CenterForTheBuiltEnvironment/pcs-chair and https://github.com/CenterForTheBuiltEnvironment/clearing-the-air) both undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in Building Science, Technology and Sustainability programs. During the secondment, the fellow published a technical article (https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6005-2021) showing how to calibrate and use low-cost ozone sensors in a remote alpine environment. The fellow was involved in a study for the assessment of indoor PM2.5 exposure during wildfires in California and he is currently preparing a scientific publication. By the end of the secondment, the fellow developed the PIONEER dedicated PCB and sofware infrastructure that will be tested in the eastern Alps.

Progressi oltre lo stato dell’arte e potenziale impatto previsto (incluso l’impatto socioeconomico e le implicazioni sociali più ampie del progetto fino ad ora)

During the project it was demonstrated how low-cost sensors can be used for Earth surface monitoring. The novel and open-source wireless sensor networks application developed during the secondment in Berkeley will enable the exploitation of low-cost technologies for environmental monitoring of remote areas of the planet, also known as "climate sentinels". The IoT design and easy to use hardware developed will potentially allow the involvement of citizens in Earth monitoring. Through citizen science and dedicated education/research projects, the open-source solutions developed could trigger the developement of novel applications (e.g. smart agriculture, smart cities, home automation, etc.).

The figure show the PCB and electronics for data acquisition (right) and sensors (left)