Date of Graduation

5-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Computer Science and Computer Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Bobda, Christophe

Committee Member/Reader

Parkerson, James

Committee Member/Second Reader

Nelson, Alexander

Abstract

The deterioration of human and environmental health due to worsening outdoor air quality is a serious global threat. A step towards improving the current state of ambient air worldwide is the increased collection of data for government policy, research, and general public use. Currently, reliable data is only collected at a handful of sites in the state of Arkansas and sparsely across the country. The purpose of this project was to design an inexpensive air quality sensor to saturate entire cities with nodes which transmit air data to a sensor for a web application to display. The prototype node was designed and implemented as a proof of concept with a projection for a node optimized for size, power, cost, and development time. The node uses solar power to charge a lead acid battery in order to support a Raspberry Pi Zero W equipped with air quality sensors using a FONA module to connect to the 2G network to transmit TCP packets to a Python server. The final prototype uses an automated script to collect sensor data, compile the data into a packet, and send to the TCP server to be inserted into the database. The web application uses REST endpoints on the server to execute HTTP requests by the application for data to populate the data and map pages. For future work, system testing should further optimize the prototype node as well as bring the nodal network into the Internet of Things movement.

Download

Share

COinS