Enabling better environments to live and work via precise and reliable environmental monitoring instrumentation

Sonitus Systems designs and develops cutting-edge, dependable environmental monitoring instruments, supported by expert and reliable service. Sonitus Systems has grown steadily to become a leading global supplier of construction and industrial monitoring instrumentation. Through an expanding network of global distributors, Sonitus Systems’ products are currently in use on over 4,000 construction, industrial and smart cities projects across the world. The company’s latest product, the DM30 Dustsens, was recently awarded MCERTS certification for indicative ambient particulate monitoring.  

The Dustsens is an automated air quality monitoring station that continuously measures PM10, PM2.5 and PM1. Designed for applications where reliability, accuracy and simplicity are key, the Dustsens is intended to provide long term measurements of dust and particulates, with minimal service requirements. Both PM10 and PM2.5 measurement functions are covered under the recent MCERTS approval.

Paul McDonald, MD of Sonitus Systams stated “A huge amount of R&D has been put into our product technology and we are proud to help our global customers by providing environmental instrumentation they can trust, experts they can speak to, and information they can act on,”  

The Dustsens is built on Sonitus Systems’ long established measurement platform, which combines ease of use with long term durability. All monitoring functions are automated and results are uploaded to the Sonitus Cloud platform for automatic averaging, limit checks and report generation. The device has a heated inlet to ensure consistent operation of the optical particle counter in all weather conditions.

The Dustsens can also be equipped with an optional wind and weather sensor, to measure just what those weather conditions might be. And for added utility, the Dustsens can be combined with Sonitus Systems’ noise monitor to provide a single boundary monitor recording sound and dust levels in one station.

Dublin City Air & Noise
Globally, there is a growing interest in air quality, both indoors and outdoors, and people are becoming much more aware of how the air we breathe can impact our health. This interest and public awareness has heightened since the Covid pandemic and is reflected in a range of smart city initiatives being rolled out across the planet, including the establishment of the Dublin City Air & Noise monitoring project. The Sonitus Systems team expects environmental monitoring to continue to grow in importance as people become ever more aware of the dangers of particulate pollutants to human health.  The team is proud to have worked with Dublin City Council over the past decade to monitor – and make public in real time – noise and air quality data, for the benefit of residents and visitors to the city through Dublin City Air and Noise.

Dublin Sound Monitoring Network 
Traffic and industrial activities are the most dominant sources of environmental noise pollution across Dublin City. Sound is monitored 24 hours a day using Sonitus Systems’ noise monitoring instrumentation, with six key metrics taken every five minutes and shared through Dublin City Air and Noise. Residents and visitors to the city can check environmental noise levels through live readings in order to manage the effects of noise pollution on their daily lives. As a result of their long term monitoring over 10 years, the City Council have legally protected 7 areas of the city from any future unwanted increases in noise levels.

Over the past two years the company has worked closely with the City Council to incorporate a city wide network of air quality monitoring stations. This measurement data is continuously uploaded to the Sonitus Cloud monitoring platform and made available publicly through the community engagement website. The citizens of Dublin can now see accurate noise and air quality data in real time, making better decisions about how they interact with the urban environment.

Monitoring Ireland’s Air Quality
The team of experts at Sonitus Systems have also worked with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Ireland to provide dynamic air quality data through AirQuality.ie.

The EPA is responsible for the operation and maintenance of a network of monitoring stations across the country. This network records a range of metrics including particulates and gases to calculate an Air Quality Index for Health (AQIH) at locations all over the country. 

The air quality team at Sonitus Systems worked extensively with the EPA to develop a community engagement platform that would allow the Agency to easily share information with the public in real time. In addition, the Agency team needed a platform to administer a network of over 100 monitoring stations, with remote access for teams distributed in various offices and in the field. 

AirQuality.ie
The Airquality.ie website was launched on World Lung Day as part of the EPA’s initiative to raise awareness of the health benefits of clean air. This publically available resource displays real time and historical data through a user-friendly interface along with the current AQIH. The data is supported by educational information and the website is designed to make the information accessible to as wide an audience as possible, including the vision impaired. The EPA team has a secure login through the Sonitus Cloud to manage all measurement devices, data feeds and monitor the performance of all equipment. 

Robust, reliable and actionable environmental monitoring enables government organisations to raise awareness of the negative impacts of pollutants on residents and visitors to an area, while prompting behavioural changes to lessen those impacts. By helping people to access insightful information about poor air quality or excessive sound levels, citizens are empowered to make decisions about their own exposure to environmental pollutants. Over time, this awareness will help people - companies and individuals - to assess our own contribution to pollutants in our surrounding areas and act accordingly to help protect living and working environments.

Sonitus Systems offers both the hardware and software for monitoring a range of environmental parameters. For more details about our noise and air quality monitoring products, please contact the team at Sonitus Systems.