SBIR Phase II: AQSync for Distributed Calibrations of Mobile Air Quality Sensing Platforms

SBIR 第二阶段：用于移动空气质量传感平台分布式校准的 AQSync

• 批准号: 1925735
• 负责人: John Birks
• 金额: $ 67.43万
• 依托单位: LUDLUM MEASUREMENTS, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-11-01 至 2021-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1925735&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; AQSync; Distributed

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is to enable a new paradigm for air pollution monitoring and mapping through the U.S. and globally. According to the World Health Organization, 4 million deaths per year globally are directly linked to ambient air pollution. Until now, the approach to monitoring of air pollutants has been limited to measurements at a few fixed-base stations spread throughout each U.S. state (e.g., ~30 in Colorado for a population of 6 million), and those stations are purposely located far from air pollution hot spots in order to obtain approximate averages. Recent advances in low-cost sensor technology has enabled new high-resolution mapping of air pollutants throughout cities and rural areas through vehicles of opportunity, such as those associated with ride share services and delivery vehicles, carrying small air quality sensor packages continuously uploading air pollution measurements to the web. The principal roadblock to this approach, addressed in this project, is a method to continuously verify the calibration of these mobile air quality sensors, inherently less accurate than traditional instruments. This SBIR Phase II project proposes to develop, test and evaluate a distributed calibration station, AQSync, to be mounted on lamp and traffic light posts throughout cities and towns to provide frequent distributed calibrations of vehicle-borne air quality sensor packages. A major challenge has been the development of relatively low-cost miniaturized instruments offering highly accurate measurements for inclusion in AQSync. This is particularly true for black carbon, believed to contribute substantially to up to 200,000 premature deaths each year in the U.S. through pollution-related health conditions such as asthma, stroke, heart disease and cancer. The development and commercialization of a Black Carbon Photometer in Phase I of this project represents a potentially disruptive technology facilitating measurements of black carbon directly in the gas phase, without the known artifacts associated with previous instruments and within a small footprint suitable for AQSync. This project addresses the next challenge of developing algorithms and demonstrating that implementation of distributed AQSync calibration stations enable accurate mobile sensor measurements to inform policy-makers, subsequently improving human health.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过美国和全球实现空气污染监测和绘图的新范式。 根据世界卫生组织的数据，全球每年有400万人的死亡与环境空气污染直接相关。 到目前为止，监测空气污染物的方法仅限于在遍布美国各州的几个固定基站进行测量（例如，科罗拉多约30个，人口600万），这些监测站故意远离空气污染热点，以获得近似的平均值。 低成本传感器技术的最新进展使整个城市和农村地区的空气污染物的新的高分辨率映射成为可能，通过机会车辆，例如与乘车共享服务和交付车辆相关的车辆，携带小型空气质量传感器包，不断将空气污染测量结果上传到网络。 在本项目中解决的这种方法的主要障碍是一种持续验证这些移动的空气质量传感器的校准的方法，这些传感器本质上不如传统仪器准确。 SBIR第二阶段项目建议开发、测试和评估分布式校准站AQSync，安装在城市和城镇的路灯和交通灯柱上，为车载空气质量传感器包提供频繁的分布式校准。 一个主要的挑战是开发成本相对较低的小型仪器，提供高度准确的测量，以纳入AQSync。 对于炭黑来说尤其如此，据信，炭黑每年通过与污染有关的健康状况，如哮喘，中风，心脏病和癌症，在美国造成多达20万人过早死亡。 在该项目的第一阶段，黑碳光度计的开发和商业化代表了一种潜在的颠覆性技术，可直接在气相中测量黑碳，而没有与先前仪器相关的已知伪影，并且在适合AQSync的小占地面积内。 该项目解决了开发算法的下一个挑战，并证明分布式AQSync校准站的实施能够实现精确的移动的传感器测量，为政策制定者提供信息，从而改善人类健康。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。