Cloud-Based In-Vehicle Air Quality Monitoring System with GSM Module

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a monitoring system that not limited to real-time vehicle tracking, but also with the ability to monitor in-vehicle air quality. In vehicle air quality is referred to indoor air quality (IAQ) inside the vehicle cabin which is lacked of awareness among driver nowadays. Previous research indicates that human spend up to 90% of their daily time inside the closed circulated air environment including, the vehicle. Prolonged use of air recirculation inside the vehicle cabin can lead to a gradual accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) which may occur the symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, and dizziness even deleterious effects on cognitive function towards the occupants. Vehicle cabin is an enclosed environment to prevent the outdoor air directly flow inside the vehicle cabin. However, when the vehicle speed increases the air pressure will be applied onto the joint of the car body and created some leakages then the outdoor air can flow into the cabin then may change the IAQ. A Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications module is utilised as a proxy to push the aggregated information such as real-time vehicle location, IAQ status and timestamps into the cloud database with an iteration of the 30s. The average time delayed for data to reach the cloud database is approximate 3.6s from the time it transmitted. Through the Android mobile application, the user can observe the in-vehicle air quality with the current location in two optional modes: real-time or historical data. The developed device and system were compared with off the shelf device (AeroQual). The Bland-Altman plot method was applied to validate the result of in-vehicle air quality system. The coefficient of determination (R2) value between these two devices is approximately 0.9. The in-vehicle air quality with vehicle tracking system has been successfully developed and provided a reliable result.