Distributed Air Quality Sensor Mesh
A mesh of low cost air quality nodes covering an area at higher spatial resolution than official monitoring, with long range radio linking to a single gateway. The interesting problems are radio range in real environments and keeping cheap sensors trustworthy over months.
Intermediate
A small team, or one strong student willing to learn something new.1 semester, 2 to 3 students
5 to ship
3 optional extrasSuggested stack
What you should ship
- At least 5 nodes measuring particulate matter, temperature and humidity, deployed outdoors
- Long range radio network with a documented range and packet loss survey of the actual deployment area
- Gateway with store and forward buffering so gateway downtime does not lose readings
- Calibration of nodes against a reference instrument or an official station, with correction applied
- Dashboard showing the spatial gradient across the deployment over time
If you have time left
- Solar powered nodes with measured autonomy through poor weather
- Automatic detection of failed or drifting nodes
- Source identification from the spatial and temporal pattern of readings
The problem
Official monitoring stations are accurate and sparse, often one per city, which cannot show that a particular street is far worse than the average. Cheap sensors can, if you handle their weaknesses.
What you build
A five node deployment, a long range radio link, a buffered gateway, calibration, and a dashboard showing the gradient across the area.
Why the radio survey is a real deliverable
Long range radio claims are made in ideal conditions. Actual range through buildings and foliage is much shorter and highly variable, and measuring it across your deployment area is genuine engineering work that most projects assert rather than test.
The credibility requirement
Calibration. Uncorrected low cost particulate sensors read substantially high in humid conditions. Co-locate a node with a reference for a period, fit a correction, and report accuracy before and after. Without this the whole dataset is questionable.
The deployment reality
Outdoor nodes get wet, overheat in sun, lose power and are occasionally removed by people. Weatherproofing and remote health monitoring are not optional extras, and planning for maintenance is part of the design.
Timing
Deploy in the first month. You need weeks of data and the enclosures will take longer to sort out than you expect.
Scope warning
Five nodes done well beats twenty planned and three working.
Ideas and guidance, not finished projects
These are project ideas and scoping guidance, published free for students to use as a starting point. I do not build, write, or sell final-year projects, and I do not complete coursework for anyone. Take an idea, make it yours, and build it.
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