International Conference on Energy, Communication, Data Analytics and Soft Computing (ICECDS-2017)
Low Cost Pollution Control and Air Quality
Monitoring System using Raspberry Pi for
Internet of Things
Kiruthika.R1
1
M.Tech - Embedded Systems
SASTRA University
Thanjavur
Abstract:- Internet of Things (IoT) is an innovative
approach to connect various devices through the
internet and use such an interconnection to implement
highly beneficial functions. IoT is certainly one of the
most widely researched topics and will continue to
shape the approach we adopt to solve problems in the
years to come. In this paper, an IoT-based system has
been proposed to combat air pollution, which is
particularly a cause of concern in the densely populated
country e.g., India. An embedded system is used to
connect several sensors that collect data on the
surrounding environment. Based on the obtained data, a
prediction algorithm is put forth to proactively
implement a solution to any problem encountered. The
collected data is stored in a MySQL database that can
be queried whenever the relevant information is
required. This model would analyze the data and report
it to the users. The obtained results are evaluated using
ThinkSpeak open data IoT platform with data analytics.
A major advantage of the proposed system is its cost-
effectiveness. Coupled with its scalable, dynamic and
flexible nature, this model can be easily set-up and
deployed in any area to monitor and control the quality
of its environment.
Keywords: Internet of Things; Smart city, Wi-Fi
Module, IoT applications, Raspberry Pi, ThinkSpeak,
Environmental Monitoring.
I. INTRODUCTION
A Wireless Sensor Network [1, 6] consists of many
inexpensive wireless sensors, which are capable of
978-1-5386-1887-5/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
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A.Umamakeswari2
School of Computing
SASTRA University
Thanjavur
collecting, storing, processing environmental
information and communicating with the neighboring
nodes. The access method of the WSN gateway node
[1,6,9] is convenient because it allows data to be
received from the WSN via the gateway at any time and
place. The gateway acts as the network coordinator and
it can fetch, process and communicate the received data.
Smart building, Smart vehicle management, forecasting,
Polluting Control and Quality monitoring are the
sample emerging applications using Internet of Things
(IoT) [5].
IoT devices not only sense the data, but also act on the
sensed data. In almost all the IoT based applications,
data analytics will play a major role to take the dynamic
decisions for better performance. Embedded devices,
such as sensors, actuators, and smart-phones, provide a
great business potential towards the new era of IoT, in
which all the devices are able to interconnect and
communicate with each other using Internet. The huge
number of smart devices plays an important role in
bringing about the IoT revolution [5,8]. As per the
Gartner report, 100 billion devices will be connected to
IoT platform by 2020. The approximate economical
growth rate is more than 30 % per year.
In this day and age, air pollution is certainly an issue of
significance [7]. To keep it in control and provide a
better quality of life for all, air quality should be
monitored. With this in mind, an air quality monitoring
system to keep an eye on and check live air quality in
specific areas has been implemented using IoT. Air
sensors have been used to detect the presence of
 International Conference on Energy, Communication, Data Analytics and Soft Computing (ICECDS-2017)

harmful gases/compounds, which are continually which acts as a sensor node to monitor the external
transmitted to a controller. The controller then environment factors such as temperature, moisture,
processes this data and transmits it via the internet. This humidity and MQ5 Gas sensors. MySQL open source
system enables authorities to be alerted in case of dire database is installed in the server to provide data storage
air quality in a region, thereby facilitating a quick functionalities. The output of the data prediction and
response to control such a situation. An additional analysis sensor values are stored in the My SQL
advantage offered by the system is that it monitors areas database and alert signal is generated when the
such as schools, hospitals and no-honking zones for monitored data cross its limit.
noise pollution and will allow authorities to keep an eye
on the same. The key concept of the air quality The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In section
monitoring system [10] is to get the accurate 2, hardware configuration using embedded system for
information at the correct place from reliable devices to pollution control and air quality monitoring System and
make the quality-related decisions with clarity and its importance are described. In section 3,
implement the process quickly. To develop an IoT- implementation module of hardware prototype model
based air quality monitoring system, several wireless with data prediction and filtering algorithm are
and wired sensors, (raspberry pi) sensor node, gateway discussed. Experimental results are presented in section
and ESP 8266 WiFi modules are used. The main 4. Finally section 5 concludes the work.
challenge in this work is to link air quality monitoring
II. HARDWARE CONFIGURATION
information together with multiple location-based IoT
data. To process the data in an efficient way, a data In IoT [8,11], the different hardware embedded
prediction and analysis algorithm is proposed. In figure development boards are used to establish the smart
1, a detailed architecture of the proposed work is applications. Based on Processor, GPU, Operating
described. Voltage, Clock Speed, Bus Width, System Memory,
Flash Memory, EEPROM, and Communication
Raspberry Pi 3[2,3,4] is a portable and a formidable Supported Development Environments, Programming
Single Board Computer (SBC) that consists of ARM Language, and I/O Connectivity, the hardware devices
processor and runs on a Linux Operating System (OS). are categorized.
It is a flexible System-on-Chip board which can be
utilized for a number of uses. In Raspberry Pi,
BCM2837 chip based on 64bit ARM v7 Quad Core
Processor is used and can support operating systems
such as Raspbian, Ubuntu Mate and Windows10. The
chip features a clock speed of 1.2 GHz with 1GB of
RAM and has 40 extended GPIO pins. It supports
network connectivity using BCM43143 WiFi Module
on board. Raspberry pi [2,3,4] was used as sensor node
as well as gateway node. The temperature, humidity and
moisture values are measured and data prediction and
analysis algorithm is proposed to avoid redundant data
storage and also increases the efficiency of decision
making process. ESP8266 is a new exciting, low cost
Wi-Fi module suitable for adding Wi-Fi functionality to
an existing controller (single board computers) through
UART serial connection. It has special features includes
802.11 b/g/n protocol, Wi-Fi Direct (P2P), soft-AP and
Integrated TCP/IP protocol stack. ESP8266 requires
3.3V power. This ESP8266 Wi-Fi Module is used in
this work to communicate the processed data to the Figure 1: Functional model of the proposed work
remote controllers through web link. Raspberry Pi

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 International Conference on Energy, Communication, Data Analytics and Soft Computing (ICECDS-2017)
Raspberry pi is used as main board and sensors are
interfaced with the main board controller through
GrovePi device to collect different real time data from
external surroundings and this processed data will be
obtained by the web server using ESP 8266 wireless
modules and display it. With the help of Internet, users
can access the data from anywhere, any time.
Raspberry-Pi is interfaced with various sensors
(temperature, Humidity, MQ 5 Gas Sensor) and real
time data will be obtained and stored in a Web-server.
Raspberry Pi [2,3,4] will perform as the connection
gateway and publishes the packaged data to web
resources. Python is a general purpose high level
programming language. It has a dynamic memory
management and has a large and comprehensive
standard library. It provides better code reliability and
its syntax supports the programmers to convey the
embedded concepts in limited ways. Overall block
diagram of the proposed system as shown in fig.1.
Different sensors are installed at the different location
in the environment. The temperature, humidity,
moisture and MQ 5 gas sensor installed at the different
location and appropriately interfaced with the
Raspberry pi [2,3,4].
Figure 2: Layer Services in the proposed model
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III.PROTOTYPE IMPLEMENTATION
Environmental monitoring [12, 14, 15] is the collection
of processes and activities that have to be implemented
to monitor the environmental quality. Monitoring
strategies and techniques are designed to reflect the
current status of the environment, or to establish trends
in environmental parameters. In this paper, we have
proposed a system to monitor pollution using the
concept of IoT [8,11,18] and its associated techniques.
Such a system would monitor the damages done to the
environment and the degree of the damage to enforce
the corresponding control and prevention practices. The
system would then notify the concerned authorities
about the issue to enable them to take the necessary
steps.
In this work, the data prediction and data filtering
algorithm is proposed. Four sensors were used to sense
the humidity, temperature, gas density and soil moisture
content to monitor the air quality [16,17]. Based on the
analysis report, the following values are defined: gas
density threshold, temperature threshold, humidity
threshold and moisture threshold. The system’s primary
function is to send an alert the user through a website
that it is connected to and when any of the sensed
parameters exceed their corresponding threshold value.
The values are continually recorded and are transmitted
to an online database in intervals of three, five or ten
minutes (this value is specified by the user). The pins
connected to the sensors in the Raspberry Pi module are
initialized. A ‘Reference Value’ is calculated using the
recorded temperature and humidity values, and this
value is stored in the database. From the reference
value, the corresponding threshold values are
calculated. For the gas density sensing, MQ-5 sensor
was used to collect data from the surrounding
environment and continuously checks it with the gas
density threshold. If it is found to exceed the threshold,
an alert message is sent to a website, whilst the time and
density values are recorded into the database.
Otherwise, the database is simple updated with the
density value and the time at which it was recorded.
Similarly, the temperature and humidity values are
sensed, recorded and alerted (if threshold value is
exceeded). For soil moisture content, the sensed value is
checked with the moisture threshold. If it is found to be
lower than the threshold, it sends an alert message to the
website, records the time and moisture values into the
 International Conference on Energy, Communication, Data Analytics and Soft Computing (ICECDS-2017)
database, and dispatches a command to pump water into
the soil. Else, the moisture values and the time at which
they were measured are recorded into the database.
Figure 3: Experimental Setup
Figure 4:System Flow in Data prediction algorithm
The system shall be installed in several places of a city
[1,12], preferably with a higher density of population.
This system would then observe specific gas density
values using the temperature, humidity, soil moisture
and MQ-5 gas sensor over a period of time. This data is
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highly useful for understanding the levels of pollution
in a place. Places with higher population density would
be expected to have higher levels of pollution, and
therefore, the sensors can be calibrated as required to
monitor the observed values. Lower population density
would imply better environmental standards, so they
would require lower levels of monitoring by the system.
The same logic is also applicable for industrial and non-
industrial areas, where pollution caused by factories can
be kept under a close watch. The collected data can be
analyzed to understand more about the places under
monitor and to make crucial insights similar to the ones
mentioned above.
Such an IoT-based system [11,17] has great potential to
vastly improve the quality of life. Owing to flexibility
and deployability, it can be set-up and implemented
easily in any location where monitoring is required. It
provides connectivity to a cloud ecosystem where the
collected data can be observed and recorded in a
simplified manner, thereby improving the ease of usage.
This system is also easy to scale, so areas ranging from
small towns to large portions of countries can be
monitored. But the feature that makes this system very
feasible to implement is its low cost. By establishing a
network of sensors over several regions, we can collect,
analyze and implement measures to control the quality
of the environment, and this system would help make
all the above possible.
IV.ALGORITHM FOR DATA PREDICTION AND
FILTERING
Input: gas_sensor_threshold
#current threshold of density of gas ( MQ 5) at a given
location
temperature_threshold
#current threshold of temperature at a given location
humidity_threshold
# current threshold of humidity at a given location
moisture_threshold
#current threshold of soil moisture content at a given
location
Output: alert if any threshold exceeded
Values are collected in database for every 3, 5, 10
minutes
Reference Value which is calculated from temperature
and relative humidity
 International Conference on Energy, Communication, Data Analytics and Soft Computing (ICECDS-2017)

Density of Gas (MQ 5) is checked with threshold value # Same logic is implemented in another Nodes using
python script to get all the information’s about the
Method: environment
initialize the pins connected to the sensors
# Collecting Gas (MQ5), Temperature, Moisture and V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Humidity at Location 1
for each specific Interval #3, 5, 10 minutes This work presents the design and implementation of a
get value from connected sensor in raspberry Pi low cost but highly flexible, high-speed air quality
# calculate reference value = temperature_value - ((100 monitoring system using Raspberry pi [2,3,4] with
- humidity_value) / 5)
cloud storage technology for wide-ranging users. The
record time
store reference value in database flexibility level is increased due to the usage of
#temperature part Raspberry pi which sends the data and alert messages to
if temperature_value>temperature_threshold then the developer and end users, easily connectible to
send alert message external devices. Raspberry pi provides low cost and
record time efficient platform for implementing the air quality
storetemperature_value in database monitoring system. The significance of this system
else
provides required action can be taken in short span of
Normal message
record time time in the case of emergency condition and compact
storetemperature_value in database design with tiny size. In this work, raspberry pi 3 board
acts as a main controller and temperature & humidity
#gas sensor part (MQ5) sensor, moisture sensor and MQ5 gas sensor are used to
If gas_sensor_value>gas_sensor_threshold then measure the external parameters. The collected data is
send alert message
stored in a MySQL database that can be queried in
record time
storegas_sensor_value in database ThinkSpeak whenever the relevant information is
else required. This model would analyze the data and report
Normal message it to the users.
record time
storegas_sensor_value in database

#humidity part
If moisture_value<moisture_threshold then
send alert message
record time
storehumidity_value in database
else
record time
storehumidity_value in database

#soil moisture part

If moisture_value<moisture_threshold
then
send message to Actuators
record time storemoisture_value
in database
else
Normal message
record time
storemoisture_value in database
Figure 5:Data collected from different sensor
end for solve any raised exceptions (Temperature, Humidity, Gas, Moisture)
return status
end

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 International Conference on Energy, Communication, Data Analytics and Soft Computing (ICECDS-2017)

Figure 7: Run time status Comparison in Time Vs. MQ

5 Gas Sensor, Time Vs. humidity Level

The proposed model is developed and implement in real

Figure 6: Sensor data stored in MYSQL database
time field and the measured results are plotted in figure
7. Figure 7 shows the Run time status Comparison in
Time Vs. MQ 5 Gas Sensor at different location and
shows the Run time status Comparison in Time Vs. at
Humidity Level different location and also depicts Run
time status Comparison in Time Vs. Plant temperature
and describes Run time status Comparison in Time Vs.
Moisture. Based on the datasets collected by different
sensors from real time environment, the threshold value
can be set for the pollution. If the sensor value from the
environment exceeds the threshold value, the
communication module sends the message alert to the
client by using ThinkSpeak. The level of pollution and
quality of the external environmental are analyzed with
Raspberry Pi prototyping model. It provides highly
Àexible and cost-effective solution. In this paper, data
prediction and analysis was implemented in Raspberry
Pi[2,3,4], which provide better results to attain the alert
signal for effective execution. This work offers
advanced and modern services to society in order to
improve the overall quality of their life.

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 International Conference on Energy, Communication, Data Analytics and Soft Computing (ICECDS-2017)

Figure 9: Run time status Comparison in Time Vs Figure 10: Run time status Comparison in Time Vs
Temperature Sensor Moisture level

Fig11: Twitter update for sensor values

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 International Conference on Energy, Communication, Data Analytics and Soft Computing (ICECDS-2017)
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an IoT-based system has been proposed to
address the issue of environmental degradation and
pollution. Using different sensors connected to a
Raspberry Pi module, environmental parameters like
gas density, humidity, temperature and soil moisture are
observed and recorded at frequent intervals. The
prediction algorithm proposed would use this data to
suggest solutions necessary to counteract any detected
problems. The analyzed data is then reported to the
users to keep them informed and alert them in case of
any issue that requires attention. Thus, this system
would enable the environment in which it is installed to
be monitored continuously and keep the pollution levels
to a minimum. Its cost-effective and scalable nature also
makes it easy to install and use across large areas. With
pollution being a major threat to our environments and
consequently, our way of life, it is imperative to take
measures to control the situation. But, adopting such an
IoT-based approach would be an effective solution to
monitor and resolve problems that the environment may
encounter.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to express their sincere thanks to the
Department of Science & Technology, New Delhi,
India (Project-ID:SR/FST/ETI-371/2014) and SASTRA
University, Thanjavur, India for extending the
infrastructural support to carry out this work.
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