Autonomous Monitoring of Air Quality

Through an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Víctor H. Andaluz1(&), Fernando A. Chicaiza1(&),

Geovanny Cuzco2(&), Christian P. Carvajal1(&), Jessica S. Ortiz1(&),
José Morales3(&), Vicente Morales4(&), Darwin S. Sarzosa1(&),
Jorge Mora-Aguilar1(&), and Gabriela M. Andaluz5(&)
1
Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE, Sangolquí, Ecuador
{vhandaluz1,jsortiz4,dssarzosa1,jlmora2}@espe.edu.ec
2
Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo, Riobamba, Ecuador
gcuzco@unach.edu.ec
3
Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo, Riobamba, Ecuador
jose.morales@espoch.edu.ec
4
Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador
jvmorales99@gmail.com
5
Universidad Internacional del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
gaandaluzor@uide.edu.ec

Abstract. The monitoring of air quality allows to evaluate the amount of

harmful particles for health that are being released. Under this paradigm and
knowing the current methods to monitor these parameters, this work proposes
the use of a UAV for commercial use and the construction of a card for gas
measurement. Additionally and with the objective of having complete control
over the vehicle, the article proposes the development of a library for the control
and monitoring of the instrumentation of a commercial drone, through which the
validation of control algorithms is proposed. As a result of this work, two real
experiments on a rural environment and an urban environment are carried out to
validate both the library created and the method of acquiring information on air
quality.

Keywords: Air quality
UAV
Linear algebra
Advanced controller

1 Introduction

Air quality is a major concern in several cities around the world; prolonged exposure to
elements such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2),
ozone (O3) and particulate material (PM) [1], significantly affect human health and are
responsible for a variety of respiratory diseases, cardiovascular, diabetes [2], anemia
[3], cognitive neuro [4], psychological [5], cancer [6], among others. In addition, the air
pollution is responsible for the environmental problems such as acidification and
eutrophication [7] of ecosystems. Currently, the measurement of air quality has been
developed focused in two areas: (i) the legislative, for compliance with environmental
regulations [8]; (ii) scientific research, related to studies of impact on the environment,

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

F. Wotawa et al. (Eds.): IEA/AIE 2019, LNAI 11606, pp. 146–157, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22999-3_14
 Autonomous Monitoring of Air Quality Through an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 147

the biology and medicine [2, 4, 9]. In both cases the measurement is performed using
networks of fixed and mobile certified reference equipment stations with high operation
costs. Networks of stations for monitoring provide accurate information but in a given
region, useful for compliance with regulations environmental but insufficient to
influence health studies [8]. It is of great scientific interest to increase data collection in
order to generate high resolution air quality maps, so that low cost sensor platforms on
mobile devices provide the sector with great potential and, by incorporating sensors to
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provides the researcher with real-time monitoring
possibilities at different heights.
UAVs can be used in several applications whether they are civilian or military due
to its versatility and continuous evolution, considered alternative tool for low cost for
gathering information in large areas and inaccessible, its found in applications such as:
(i) surveillance, mapping and 3D modeling [10], (ii) Precision agriculture, as agri-
cultural monitoring [11], weed detection, pest control; (iii) Monitoring of rivers and
lakes, during the natural disaster information collection, natural reserves, among others
[12]. These aircraft can: (a) Fly autonomously to the on-board processors and sensors
from global positioning (GPS), inertial sensors for navigation as gyroscopes,
accelerometers, electromechanical systems [13], altitude, and; (b) Tele-Operate, con-
trolled from a ground station under human supervision [13]. In both cases the UAVs
are exposed to multiple disturbances requiring a greater complexity in the system of
navigation and control [14].
The control of a UAV can be organized into three large groups: (i) Based on
learning, or free of models where algorithms have been developed with Fuzzy Logic as
proposed by [15] applied to trajectory tracking. [16] applies neural networks to the
prediction of collisions that unlike [17] employs learning reinforcement; (ii) Lineal
Controllers, its great advantage is the ease of implementation in a real platform and
employs a linearized model of the quadrotor, applications have been found where PID
drivers are used, LQG/LQR, as well as Robust Mixed H∞/H2 [18], who perform
feedback control with noise for attitude control and tracking of an unmanned aerial
vehicle, other applications have focused on trajectory tracking using gain scheduling
[19] and; (iii) Non-Linear Controllers, which can be completely non-linear, where
applying backstepping provides good results according [20] and [21], instead lin-
earization processes where jobs have been found using sliding mode [22], predictive
models, adaptive and linearization in the feedback [23], a different approach that allows
the tracking of continuous trajectories to pieces using linear algebra can be seen in [24,
25] Linear algebra control is an advanced control technique that does not require
complex calculations and the computational requirement is low, which allows it to be
implemented in low-performance processors and maintain an adequate performance for
the execution of tasks such as: position control, speed control and, road tracking.
For the described, in this article, we present a control technique employed by the linear
algebra method for the autonomous flight of the unmanned aerial vehicle UAV, for the
monitoring of air quality, obtaining gas measurements such as carbon monoxide CO,
dioxide of sulfur SOx, Ozone Ox and carbon monoxide CO2.
148 V. H. Andaluz et al.

2 Problem Formulation

The measurement of air pollution parameters is characterized by temporal and spatial

environments because most of these measurements are made in situ using monitoring
networks with; fixed stations, which are delineated to a specific area; and mobile
stations, which is limited to uses in time and place, to the two systems currently used, it
is impossible to measure gases in a stratified form by height and in trajectories that the
investigation requires. The need to analyze environmental information at different
heights involves the use of emerging technologies for the collection of environmental
data using UAVs that are able to track the road continuously and with low impact due
to disturbances to which they are exposed.
Figure 1 shows the multilayer control scheme proposed for the present work, where
each module has been considered as a fully functional entity that operates indepen-
dently where: (i) Off-line planning layer is responsible for generating the route plan-
ning considering height, position and speed; (ii) On-line planning layer allows to
modify trajectory references during a work cycle in order to modify the routes during
the development of a mission; (iii) Non-linear controller, is responsible for generating
the maneuvering signals to meet the objective of the tasks of position control, trajectory
or path monitoring, at desired speeds, considering the state of the variables coming
from; (iv) The UAV layer represents the kinematics and general dynamics of the
quadrocopters and, finally; (v) The environment layer that is responsible for relating the
environmental variables to be collected as CO, SO2, O3, CO2, T, H and considers
additionally the variables to be taken into account for the evasion of obstacles and
completing the task to collect environmental data.

Offline planning
h,v
ENVIROMENTAL DATA TASK
(x,y,z)

hq
No linear hq
Online planning vq
controller
hq,vq

uref UAV
F(x)

Enviroment

CO,SO2,O3,CO2,
T,H

Fig. 1. Multi-layered scheme of the autonomous quadrocopters

 Autonomous Monitoring of Air Quality Through an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 149

3 Modeling and Control

The kinematic model of an UAV results in the location of the point of interest based on
the location of the aerial platform. The instantaneous kinematic model of an UAV gives
the derivative of its interest point location as a function of the location of the aerial
mobile platform, v_ ¼ @f =@qðqÞv, where v_ ¼ ½v_ X v_ Y v_ Z  is the vector of the point
interest velocity, v is the control vector of mobility of the aerial mobile manipulator, in
this case the dimension depend of the maneuverability velocities of UAV.
For this case of study, then the kinematic model of UAV is conform by a set of four
velocities represented at the spatial frame \v [ . The displacement of the UAV is
guided by the three linear velocities v1 , vm and vn defined in a rotating right-handed
spatial frame \v [ , and the angular velocity x, as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Kinematic scheme of UAV

In other words, the cartesian motion of the quadcopter at the inertial frame \R [
is defined as,
8
>
> v_ ¼ v1 cos w  vm sin w
< v_ x ¼ v sin w  v cos w
1 m
x
ð1Þ
>
> v_ ¼ v n
: _z
w¼x

where v_ x , v_ y v_ z and w are all measured with respect to the inertial frame \R [ . The
point of interest (whose position is being controlled) is the center of gravity of the
UAV. Also the equation system (1) can be written in compact form as,
150 V. H. Andaluz et al.

2 3 2 32 3
v_ x cos w  sin w 0 0 vl
6 v_ y 7 6 sin w cos w 0 07 6 7
6 7¼6 7 6 vm 7
4 v_ z 5 4 0 0 1 0 54 uvn 5
w_ 0 0 0 1 x

_ ¼ JðwÞvðtÞ
vðtÞ ð2Þ

where v_ 2 <n with n ¼ 4 represents the vector of axis velocities of the \R [ system
and the angular velocity around the axis Z; Jacobian matrix that defines a linear
mapping between the vector of the UAV velocities vðtÞ; and the control of maneu-
verability of the quadcopter is defined v 2 <n .
Kinematic Controller
The proposed controller is based on calculations with numerical methods, which is
considered the kinematic model of the UAV (4) defined at the moment of time k.

_
vðkÞ ¼ Jðwðk ÞÞvðk Þ ð3Þ

In (5) using a discrete-time transformation by means of the Euler method and taking
into account that the discrete time t ¼ kT0 , where T0 represents the sampling time y
k 2 f1; 2; 3; 4; 5. . .g we obtain:

vðkÞ  vðk  1Þ
¼ JðwðkÞÞvðkÞ ð4Þ
T0

For the design of the kinematic control of the UAV, takes into account the cinematic
model (2). In order to achieve the proposed control task, the following expression is
considered:

1 1
ðvðkÞ  vðk  1ÞÞtd ðkÞ þ ðWðPd ðk  1Þ  vðk  1ÞÞÞ ð5Þ
T0 T0

where, Pd is the desired path, Wðv~ðk  1ÞÞ is a diagonal matrix that control error
weights, defined as Wð~vm ðk  1ÞÞ ¼ wm =ð1 þ j~vm ðk  1ÞjÞ, where m represents the
operational coordinates quadcopter robot.
Now, to generate the system equations consider (5) and (4), the system can be
rewritten as Au ¼ b

1
JðwðkÞÞ vðk Þ ¼ vd ðkÞ þ ðWðPd ðk  1Þ  vðk  1ÞÞÞ ð6Þ
|fflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflffl} |{z} T0
A u |fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}
b
 Autonomous Monitoring of Air Quality Through an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 151

Then, the following control law is proposed as:

 
1
vc ðk Þ ¼ J1 ðwðk ÞÞ vd ðk Þ þ ðWðPd ðk  1Þ  vðk  1ÞÞÞ ð7Þ
T0

4 Experimental Results

The validation of the proposed controller and the gas acquisition system is presented in
this section through the execution of two experiments. Taking into account that toxic
gas emissions vary depending on factors such as: presence of vehicular traffic, number
of industries, density of flora, population density, and so on, the first experiment is
carried out in a location far from this type of factors, while the second is executed on a
totally urban space to contrast results. Physically, the UAV-Acquisition Board includes
the drone with propeller protectors, on which the card is placed with the gas sensors.
The card is embedded in the vehicle through a coupling that does not alter the dynamics
of the UAV and whose maximum weight is 125 g, considering that additional batteries
are not included in addition to the integrated in the Phantom, see Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. UAV – Acquisition Board

4.1 First Experiment

The first experiment shows the execution of a circular path of 5 m radius and 25 m
high in the environment with the presence of apparently reduced contamination. The
stroboscopic movement of the experimental execution is shown in Fig. 4, where the
152 V. H. Andaluz et al.

actual execution of the vehicle on a relatively remote rural location is reconstructed, but
with the consideration of wind disturbances of more than 25 km/h. Also, the perfor-
mance of the proposed controller is demonstrated through Fig. 5, where a clear ten-
dency to zero of the control errors is observed given the control actions (Fig. 6).

Fig. 4. Stroboscopic movement of the first experiment

Fig. 5. Control errors in each of the coordinate axes

 Autonomous Monitoring of Air Quality Through an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 153

Fig. 6. Control actions to correct errors in each coordinate

On the other hand, the information acquired from the gas sensors is shown in
Fig. 7. The variation shown in the location away from sources of pollution shows a low
rate of presence of gases.

Fig. 7. Graphical plotting of wind parameters measurement

Second Experiment
The second experiment considers an urban space to perform gas monitoring, where the
path to be followed is described as an ascending circle on the Z axis. Similar to the first
experiment, the stroboscopic movement of the UAV execution is shown in Fig. 8,
where the controller is validated for path following taking into account the robustness
that it presents in the face of wind disturbances. As a result, Figs. 9 and 10, respec-
tively, show the tendency of errors to zero, as well as the control actions to correct the
tracking errors.
154 V. H. Andaluz et al.

Fig. 8. Stroboscopic movement of the second experiment

Fig. 9. Control errors in each of the coordinate axes

Fig. 10. Control actions to correct errors in each coordinate

 Autonomous Monitoring of Air Quality Through an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 155

Finally, Fig. 11 presents the measurement of gases in an urban place, in an hour

considered as the one with the highest vehicular traffic and industrial production. The
programmed trajectory allows to have a complete view of gas dispersion, where by
wind actions the decrease in the presence of the measured variables is noticed as the
vehicle increases the flight height.

Fig. 11. Graphical plotting of wind parameters measurement, second experiment

5 Conclusions

The work proposes a system to monitor the amount of toxic gases scattered in the air
through the use of a UAV. By means of an unmanned aerial vehicle, it is proposed to
include an air information acquisition card, so that the movement over unstructured
spaces is not difficult. For this, the construction of an acquisition card that is embedded
in the vehicle is considered, considering that the dynamics and weight do not influence
the correct execution of flights. Additionally, the programming of libraries based on the
SDK of the commercial robot Phantom 3 PRO is proposed in order to verify the control
algorithms pro-posed for road tracking. Finally, and through two real experiments, both
the construction of the card and the manipulation of the drone through a mathematical
software are shown, considering two scenarios where the variation of air parameters
differ from each other.

Acknowledgements. The authors would like to thanks to the Corporación Ecuatoriana para el
Desarrollo de la Investigación y Academia–CEDIA for the financing given to research, devel-
opment, and innovation, through the CEPRA projects, especially the project CEPRA-XI-2017-
06; Control Coordinado Multi-operador aplicado a un robot Manipulador Aéreo; also to
Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE, Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Escuela Superior
Politécnica de Chimborazo, Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo, and Grupo de Investigación
ARSI, for the support to develop this work.
156 V. H. Andaluz et al.

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