Pollution Monitoring System using Position-Aware Drones with 802.11 Ad-Hoc Networks

Efficient, real-time, and cost-effective pollution monitoring systems are becoming more and more important in nowadays urban environments. In this paper, we present the design of a pollution monitoring system consisting of an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, equipped with a single-board computer, a video camera, and several gas sensors such as carbon monoxide, ozone, and methane. The ground station of this system has a server that facilitates the communication with the drones, and calculates the air quality index (AQI) from the sensors data. For the purpose of lowering power consumption, the wireless ad-hoc network established between the drones is designed such that the closest one to the ground station relays its own sensed data and that of other far away drones. The base station keeps the logged pollution data, global positioning system (GPS) coordinates, time stamps, and video feeds in a database used to create real-time pollution maps. Stored historical data can be used for long-term trend analysis.