Real-time air quality monitoring and development of A 3D lung display to create awareness of Air pollution impact on health

Abstract

The impact of air quality on both human health and the environment is very significant, with poor air quality being responsible for numerous deaths and environmental damage worldwide. In an era of rapidly increasing urbanization, industrialization, flights, road traffic, air pollution continues to emerge as a big environmental threat to public health. Air pollution affects the human body system by causing irritation of the throat, eyes and nose, it also causes serious diseases such as respiratory illness, heart diseases, pneumonia, asthma and lung cancer. Although various studies indicate that there are serious negative effects associated with air pollution, little has been done to monitor and mitigate its effects especially in low-and middle-income countries. This has rendered air pollution to remain such a silent killer causing millions of deaths annually. More to that no studies have been done to visually represent the implications of air pollution on health. Therefore, in this thesis, the main objective was to design and develop a real-time air quality monitory and a 3D lung display to create awareness of Air Pollution impact on Health. To achieve this, firstly, we designed Air Quality Index prediction model using fuzzy logic techniques based on the fuzzy logic inference system. The model was designed to determine the air quality, according to the air pollutant concentrations (nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and fine particulate matter 2.5). It was observed that fuzzy logic algorithms are capable in determining the air quality index and therefore can be used to predict and estimate air quality index in real time based on the given air pollutant concentrations hence this can reduce on the effects of air pollution on both humans and the environment. Secondly,we designed a hardware implementation of IoT enabled real-time air quality monitoring for low- and middle-income countries. In this, the potential of IoT is greatly exploited to measure air pollution levels in real-time and results are visible through the mobile application designed. Thirdly, the study presents an innovative approach to visualize the effects of air pollution on lung health using IoT and High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters air cleaner. This is achieved by modelling a 3D display of the lungs to mimic human lungs using HEPA filters, which changes colour based on the air pollutant concentrations detected by IoT based sensors which could have significant implications for public health policies aimed at mitigating the harmful effects of air pollution, particularly on lung health. In conclusion, the study has designed an Air Quality Index prediction model, it has also designed a hardware implementation of IoT enabled real-time air quality monitoring for low- and middle-income countries and finally, the study has designed a visualisation of air pollution effect on the lungs through use of internet of things and High Efficiency Particulate air filters to show what toxins from dirt air do to the lungs. Based on the results of the study, the concerned authorities, civil societies, individuals and governments xiii worldwide can pay attention to the great effects of dirty air on human health and seek to improve air quality and as a result this can reduce the public health and economic burdens that are associated with breathing dirty air effects on health especially in the low- and middle-income countries where air pollution has remained such a great silent killer.