Based on the outcomes and interactions with the other project’ products and in synergy with the SPOKE3 – RL4, this task focuses on the design and development of an advanced version of a chemical and particulate matter sensing payload based on the ENEA MONICA platform.
Given the requirements of the chemical monitoring task (chemical scenario), the MONICA sensing array will be adapted so to produce concentration estimates for the selected pollutants. Current version relies on a small array of 3 EC sensors targeted to NO2, O3, CO pollutants and can be redirected to target different chemicals such as H2S, NH3 that are relevant for industrial applications. A PID will be added to obtain information on the total VOC content of the measured atmosphere. Proper sensor for Particulate Matter (PM) monitor will be selected and added also through specific test/calibration inside the UNIGE-DIFI atmospheric simulation chamber (ChAMBRe, node of the ACTRIS European distributed research infrastructure).
Data collected by the MCU based unit will be transmitted through BLE to local IoT/Edge model to be geolocated and in turn transmitted to the applicative backend. Raw data coming from sensors will be corrected/transformed through a calibration function to finally output the desired concentrations estimations. The same device could be used for citizen science applications in both fixed and mobile (e.g. walking, biking, etc.) being associated to a dedicated Android App and Iot ecosystem devoted to data gathering, storage and presentation through dedicated HCIs. Should the requirements exceed the capacity of the MONICA Platform in terms of specific analytes or mixture, the payload could be integrated by adding non-specific sensor arrays (e-nose) and/or TDLAS sensor with tunable specificity.