Presented by: Wilton Mui, South Coast Air Quality Management District

Description: Performance evaluation studies for air quality sensors collecting stationary measurements have been conducted by various academic and government bodies, and current efforts by international standards organizations may lead to convergence of these methods. In contrast, such performance studies and methods are nonexistent for sensors used in mobile deployments, even though sensors are being used in this manner by academics, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and citizen scientists. Nonstationary measurements with air quality sensors are a relatively nascent but growing use-case, and questions of appropriateness and data quality will become increasingly important. The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s Air Quality Sensor Performance Evaluation Center (AQ-SPEC) has developed a novel evaluation protocol in which air sensors are compared to reference- or research-grade instruments while deployed on a mobile platform. Air sensors are assessed in testing phases of various degrees of environmental control, ranging from placement in a controlled-flow sampling duct to unsheltered mounting on a vehicle rooftop. These evaluations probe the performance of air sensors in mobile monitoring setups that may be appropriate for community members to carry out at the neighborhood level. The testing procedures aim to quantify the performance of air sensors and the effects of sensor siting, orientation, and vehicle velocity, which can provide guidance to users on appropriate sensors and configurations for their use-case. Recent advances in the design of a new mobile platform are also discussed.

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