MySense

Short content

What: Measuring air quality
Where : Horst aan de Maas and Land van Cuijk
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General information

As a result of the new construction of mega enterprises for pig and chicken meat and a huge manure processing company in Grubbenvorst, and the lack of local measurement data and monitoring of air quality, local residents have taken this local "Measuring Together" initiative. Unique for the Netherlands is that this project focuses on particulate matter and gas measurements in an agricultural environment.

The first oldest type is a 'pagoda' (PVC rain collector) kit. This kit is modularly constructed as quite literally a kind of “Lego” bricks: modular and expandable with many sensors, a large selection of data formats, sensor configuration and management. The Pagode communicates with the internet via LAN, WiFi or GPRS and in due course via LoRa with a wireless range of approximately 2.5 km.

The second model is the 'lantern' (PVC sewer vent pipe) type and is equipped with particulate matter and meteorological sensors and GPS and communicates for reliability reasons via the LoRa TTN (Internet of Things) network to the Internet. This measuring kit automatically recognizes which type and type of sensor it contains, so that it is easy to change the sensor. Extensive use has been made of the latest sensor and software developments at home and abroad.

The third 'solar' type is based on the Lantern type and is equipped with a solar collector and battery. This makes this kit independent of a socket.

Sensors

The measurement and output options of the kits:

• sensors:
  • particulate matter (Nova, Plantower, Sensirion and/or Dylos),
  • gases (Alpha Sense: ao ammonia, Spec: nitrogen, carbon, wave oxides and ozone and VOC gas via Bosch meteosensor),
  • meteo data (sensors from Adafruit, Bosch and Sensirion)
• metadata (sensor type, location and time via GPS)
• data communication via Internet connections (LAN, WiFi, G4, LoRaWan)
• wide variety of data archiving: spreadsheet/CSV, InfluxDB, MySQL database, HTTP proxy, and Mosquitto (MQTT),
• visualization via a mini OLED display, color LED and interactive graphs on the website, and third-party data portals
• management: remote control and software updates via internet and wifi, and extensive calibration of the sensors

The calibration of a few gases was investigated in 2018 at GGD Amsterdam. The conclusion is that measuring gases with gas sensors is possible, but is too expensive for this initiative.

The calibration of particulate matter sensors has been taken up. A number of measurement kits have been placed for this at the national RIVM monitoring station in Vredepeel.

All documentation (build, tips, calibration, experiences, etc.) and software (Python and MicroPython) is open source and made available through Github . See also the MySense Measuring Together page of Behoud de Parel.

Expansion of measurement locations

Citizen Science Foundation Land van Cuijk in the St. Anthonis region (Land van Cuijk) started with MySense at the beginning of 2019. At the end of 2019, 10 measurement kits will be operational with the support of the municipality. An expansion will follow in Land van Cuijk in 2020 with 10-20 measurement kits. At a few entrepreneurs in the municipality of Venray and St. Anthonis, 20 MySense solar measurement kits are placed around the company. Various parties start working together in a company: the entrepreneur, Dierenbescherming Nld, WUR Lifestock, HBO Fontys Venlo and many others. Keep the Pearl (MySense).