Descrizione del progetto
La tecnologia dei sensori per controllare l’inquinamento atmosferico
L’aumento della popolazione, determinando un incremento nella densità dell’inquinamento atmosferico urbano, rappresenta un problema cruciale sia per la sanità pubblica che per l’economia. Secondo le stime, più della metà delle città dell’UE supera i limiti imposti dai regolamenti UE sugli inquinanti NO2 e PM10. Ciononostante, le stazioni di controllo della qualità dell’aria presenti nelle città sono poche a causa degli elevati costi di installazione e manutenzione. Il progetto MappingAir, finanziato dall’UE, propone una piattaforma come servizio (PaaS, platform as a service) che consente di effettuare la mappatura dell’inquinamento atmosferico urbano. Questa soluzione si basa su ampio dispiegamento di sensori di gas specifici e utilizza un innovativo algoritmo post-elaborazione. I sensori vengono installati all’interno dei lampioni presenti lungo le strade allo scopo di identificare le fonti di inquinamento e suggerire misure ambientali efficaci.
Obiettivo
Air pollution is a major problem for public health. According to WHO outdoor air pollution kills 4 million people, mostly in cities, every year. That’s more than HIV, malaria and influenza combined. Air pollution is estimated to cost approximately 2% of Gross Domestic Product in developed countries and 5% in developing countries. The problem is only increasing with the unprecedented population growth in cities. In Europe, over one in four and one-third of cities surpass the legal limits set by the EU legislation regarding NO2 and PM10 respectively, pollutants that affect seriously the respiratory system. However, current air quality monitoring stations in cities are spatially very limited due to the high capital and operative expenditures. Consequently, a small number of them are installed in cities mainly used just for air quality regulation. Bettair is a Platform as a Service that permits, for the first time with low investment, to really map air an noise pollution in cities on a previously unimaginable scale based on a large deployment of outstandingly accurate gas sensors by using an advanced post-processing algorithm. The network of autonomous devices is installed in streetlights (or similar) in a dense matrix and assist cities to i) identify unknown pollution sources, and ii) to assess the impact of different environmental actions to identify the most effective ones. Thus, providing unique insights and allowing better decisions to mitigate air pollution and reduce individual exposure. We need the FTI project to internationally bring to market the developed technology, from a prototype to a product, by industrialising the hardware and scaling-up the platform. Two big and two small pilots will be carried out in order to demonstrate the accuracy, the performance, and the benefits of using such a system. The consortium has 2 innovative EU SMEs Bettair Cities and Omniflow; 2 big corporates CISCO and Telecom Italy; and a leading health research centre, ISGlobal.
Campo scientifico
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinepneumology
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic health
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringair pollution engineering
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollution
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
IA - Innovation actionCoordinatore
08907 HOSPITALET DE LLOBREGAT
Spagna
L’organizzazione si è definita una PMI (piccola e media impresa) al momento della firma dell’accordo di sovvenzione.