Towards Fine-Grained Air Quality Sensing in Urban Environments.

This paper presents preliminary findings from a deployment of an Internet of Things (IoT) air quality sensor that can provide realtime and historical fine-grained air quality data. Current air quality data provided to communities may be inaccurate meaning that people are breathing air that is more polluted than what is reported. Through this research, we share our findings from testing in a controlled environment, a test deployment in an urban environment, and an enclosure for future deployments. From our test deployment we are able to determine that there is a significant difference between two locations that are less than 4 miles apart where the average particulate matter reading was more than double. These findings show that fine-grained air quality monitoring can provide the community with more meaningful data of the air they breathe.