Air Unique-quality Monitoring, an Indigenous Photonic System Developed for Real-Time Remote Monitoring of Air Quality Parameters

Air Unique-quality Monitoring(AUM), an indigenous photonic system for real-time remote monitoring of air quality parameters has been developed. It was developed by Prof. Rao Tatavarti, Director of Gayatri Vidya Parishad-Scientific and Industrial Research Centre (GVP-SIRC) & GVP College of Engineering, Visakhapatnam with the support from Department of Science and Technology’s Clean Air Research Initiative. The system had CATS Eco-Systems, Nashik as the technology transfer partner for commercialization.

• Prof  Rao Tatavarti was supported by Prof. P. Arulmozhivarman from the School of Electrical Engineering, VIT University, Vellore, and other team members. 

Note– The patent of the AUM is pending.

Gist about AUM system:

Features

i.It is an innovative application of the principles of laser backscattering, statistical mechanics, optoelectronics, Artificial Intelligence(AI), machine/deep learning, and Internet of Things(IoT). 

ii.It can identify, classify, and quantify various pollutants simultaneously (of orders of less than one part per billion) and meteorological parameters, with very high precision, sensitivity and accuracy.

iii.It is  portable, compact, low powered and economical and works on plug and play systems.

iv.Setting up time is not required and also requires no additional civil infrastructure for housing.

Benefits

i.It offers many merits over any of the currently available conventional systems. 

ii.It provides information on all gases and meteorological parameters simultaneously.

iii.It can monitor both spatial and temporal domains, with very high sampling frequencies.

iv.The data from spatially separated sensors can be ideally streamed to a cloud server, from where real-time encrypted information on the dashboard is made available to users at any part of the world.

Evaluation & Comparison

i.It was  evaluated successfully during laboratory trials with gold standards (in collaboration with EffecTech, UK).

ii.It was also compared in the field with imported systems from France, and Australia and operated by Karnataka State Pollution Control Board under the aegis of the Central Pollution Control Board of India.

Key Info

• The AUM system can boost the efforts of the country towards self-reliance in high-end technologies.
• It also can be instrumental in supporting the efforts to improve the health and economy of the country.

Need for AUM system

i.As per the report of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the deteriorating state of poor air quality is responsible for more than 7.5 million fatalities worldwide annually.

ii.It highlights the need for accurate, cost-effective monitoring of air quality parameters as monitoring is critical to solution.

iii.The current systems and technologies which are used for the monitoring of air quality are prohibitively expensive for wider deployment.

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