Testbed Implementation of a Pollution Monitoring System Using Wireless Sensor Network for the Protection of Public Spaces

Air pollution is an important environmental issue that has a direct effect on human health and ecological balance. Factories, power plants, vehicles, windblown dust and wildfires are some of the contributors of to pollution. Reasonable simulation tools exist for evaluating large scale sensor networks, ; however, they fail to capture significant details of node operation or practical aspects of wireless communication. Real life testbeds, capture the realism and bring out important aspects for further research. In this paper, we present an implementation of a wireless sensor network testbed for automatic and real-time monitoring of environmental pollution for the protection of public spaces. The paper describes the physical setup, the sensor node hardware and software architecture for “anytime, anywhere” monitoring and management of pollution data through a single, Web-based graphical user interface. The paper presents practical issues in the integration of sensors, actual power consumption rates and develops a practical hierarchical routing methodology.