DESIGN AND APPLICATION OF A VOC-MONITORING SYSTEM BASED ON A

ZIGBEE WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK

ABSTRACT
Monitoring volatile organic compound (VOC) pollution levels in indoor environments is
of great importance for the health and comfort of individuals, especially considering that people
currently spend >80% of their time indoors. The primary aim of this paper is to design a lowpower ZigBee sensor network and internode data reception control framework to use in the realtime acquisition and communication of data concerning air pollutant levels from VOCs. The
network consists of end device sensors with photo ionization detectors, routers that propagate the
network over long distances, and a coordinator that communicates with a computer. The design
is based on the ATmega16 microcontroller and the Atmel RF230 ZigBee module, which are used
to effectively process communication data with low power consumption. Priority is given to
power consumption and sensing efficiency, which are achieved by incorporating various smart
tasking and power management protocols. The measured data are displayed on a computer
monitor through a graphical user interface. The preliminary experimental results demonstrate
that the wireless sensor network system can monitor VOC concentrations with a high level of
accuracy and is thus suitable for automated environmental monitoring. Both good indoor air
quality and energy conservation can be achieved by integrating the VOC monitoring system
proposed in this paper with the residential integrated ventilation controller.