Abstract
Recent advances in sensing technologies are leading to the development of miniaturised sensors that could be used as stand-alone devices, connected to smartphones or even embedded in smartphones. These sensors and apps create opportunities for more detailed environmental monitoring, as compared to official monitoring networks, and to involve the general public in environmental monitoring through participatory data collection and monitoring schemes. However, depending on the aspects of the environment that are monitored, technical complexity can differ quite a lot. Proper monitoring often requires important efforts in developing and validating sensing devices and in processing the collected data. This chapter deals with low-cost sensing devices and smartphone applications for physico-chemical environmental parameters, that can be used, possibly with some training, by non-specialised people, and as such create new opportunities for collection of novel data and improved monitoring of the environment. It starts with examples of novel sensing devices and apps for different environmental domains, and proceeds with a detailed overview of the possible added value, the technical challenges and future prospects in two specific domains that recently received a lot of interest, air quality and sound monitoring.
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Notes
- 1.
The term environment is used here in the narrow sense of the biophysical environment in which organisms live, that affects their health and wellbeing, and that in its turn is affected by their activities. Sensing the environment then means assessing the state of the environment in which organisms live, in domains such as air, water, noise, radiation, ecology or biodiversity.
- 2.
Changes in ambient pressure of a medium (typically air), propagating away for the source of the sound.
- 3.
Loudness level, denoted as L N , is a more accurate way to quantify the perceived loudness of sounds, taking into account not only amplitude and frequency but also masking and duration of exposure.
- 4.
Complex sounds are sounds composed of multiple frequencies, as opposed to single-frequency pure tones. Virtually all sounds we hear in our daily lives are complex.
- 5.
MicroElectrical-Mechanical System
- 6.
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Theunis, J., Stevens, M., Botteldooren, D. (2017). Sensing the Environment. In: Loreto, V., et al. Participatory Sensing, Opinions and Collective Awareness. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25658-0_2
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