Packaging Environmental Sensors for Monitoring Urban-Microclimates

An internet-of-things (IoT)-based low-cost sensor network can be used to collect the data necessary to study both Urban Heat Island (UHI) and air pollution. There are several key challenges associated with an IoT-based solution to environmental data monitoring, including packaging and deployment. This study explores these challenges by looking at effects the packaging has on the deployed environmental sensors. Several packaging designs are numerically studied using a computation fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Two sensor designs are chosen using results obtained from CFD modeling and then experimentally deployed. The findings conclude that the IoT sensors chosen for this study are not significantly affected by flow velocities or require advanced packaging designs when paired with street-side outdoor digital displays.