AQMesh thrives through (another) harsh winter

North Americans will be well aware of the particularly harsh weather in the early months of 2019, but AQMesh has taken conditions in its stride. The AQMesh stated operating range of -20°C to + 40°C is backed up by long-term operation across a wide range of climates.

AQMesh users, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), have been impressed with the fact that AQMesh pods installed on streetlights around Minneapolis St. Paul have seen temperatures as low as -25.4°C (-13.7°F) and continue to run smoothly.

Monika Vadali, leading the MPCA project, commented “We are also quite impressed with the temperatures we have seen this winter”. However, when asked for a photo of the pods, she said “I can’t get to any of the pods as we have had so much snow and cold that there is 5-6ft of snow around some of the poles, making access difficult.” Temperatures recorded elsewhere have not been so low this year but AQMesh pods have been installed over the winter in Sweden, Finland, Canada and central Europe, with temperatures regularly dropping below -20°C.

Despite such harsh weather conditions, the AQMesh pods have continued to monitor and communicate data to the AQMesh server, where it is securely accessed by users. The hardware design has been refined to ensure the equipment has the resilience to survive, with minimal maintenance, for years. The initial concept was for the pod to measure pollutant gases, particularly NO2, for two years on a single lithium battery. Although many users now run shorter projects or choose solar or DC power sources, the principle – and challenge – is unchanged.

In addition to its physical design, data processing on the AQMesh server includes carefully developed correction algorithms which compensate for extreme conditions. Remote diagnostics also identify unexpected patterns in sensor output, which may affect confidence in the data, which is then flagged.

At the same time as the AQMesh pods were under several feet of snow in Minnesota, pods in the southern hemisphere have been regularly operating at temperatures in excess of 30°C, hitting 44.7°C in South Africa and 46.0°C in Australia.

AQMesh pods have been deployed long-term (many pods are in their sixth year of deployment around the world) and as temperatures rise across some of the hottest locations where pods are deployed – Kurdistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Arizona (USA), Ghana – the latest generation of sensors and processing algorithm will continue to provide reliable and traceable air quality measurements in locations where other monitoring equipment cannot readily be deployed.

In the southern regions of the USA, with very hot temperatures and varying levels of humidity, AQMesh pods maintained high precision and accuracy against co-located certified reference equipment, with a correlation R2 of 0.92 for ozone, compared to collated FEM. Many parts of the world where AQMesh operates record relative humidity (RH%) over 90%, often on a regular or sustained basis.

AQMesh also stands up to high winds and extreme rainfall and is now available with an optional wind speed and direction sensor to complement its extensive range of measurable parameters. The meteorological data gathered by this sensor can help distinguish between local and regional sources of pollution.

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