Nowadays, the highest percentage of air pollution comes directly from road traffic instead of large industrial factories outside city limits. Road traffic is considered to be responsible for 25 percent of all emissions in Europe, increasing to 31 percent in Spain. Loss of environmental quality is one of the biggest threats of the century to health and human well-being, together with environmental impacts. To combat pollution, wireless sensor networks are monitoring environmental parameters in the city of Salamanca, Spain.
Pervasive Air-quality Sensor Network for an Environmental Friendly Urban Traffic Management (RESCATAME) is a project funded by the European Union through its LIFE program. Its main goal is to achieve sustainable management of the traffic in Salamanca by using two key elements: a pervasive air-quality sensor network as well as prediction models.
Reduced pollution will decrease the impact on world heritage monuments that make the city famous as a UNESCO World Heritage site and European Capital of Culture.
A total of 35 modules were deployed in two different locations measuring seven parameters:
1. Temperature
2. Relative humidity
3. Carbon monoxide (CO)
4. Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)
5. Ozone (O3)
6. Noise
7. Particles
The seven sensors were connected to a Libelium wireless module, which
enabled easy hardware integration of the sensors.
Effective distances reach up 40 kilometers using the 868 MHz module. The high performance makes the readings accurate and the transmission is reliable.