The document describes the AirBox ecosystem for participatory PM2.5 monitoring in Taiwan. It discusses how the system was built from an initial participatory sensing project in 2013 using low-cost sensors and volunteers, to the current ecosystem involving academia, communities, industry and government. The ecosystem is based on open hardware, software and data, and has expanded from Taiwan to other parts of Asia.

1. AirBox: a participatory ecosystem
for PM2.5 monitoring
Ling-Jyh Chen, Academia Sinica
cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw

2. 2
What are we going to cover in this talk?
1. Why is PM2.5 important?
2. How did we build the system?
3. What is the current status?
4. What is the next step?

3. 3
What are we going to cover in this talk?
1. Why is PM2.5 important?
2. How did we build the system?
3. What is the current status?
4. What is the next step?

4. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 4

5. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5)
5

6. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
The Professional Solution
6
• 76 multi-function stations
• huge and extremely expensive
• 10+ meters above the ground
• well-mixed atmosphere

7. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 7
But, the question in our mind
is just so simple that…
What’s the air quality
here and now?

8. 8
What are we going to cover in this talk?
1. Why is PM2.5 important?
2. How did we build the system?
3. What is the current status?
4. What is the next step?

9. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
We start the “participatory
sensing" project in 2013
9
low-cost sensors recruiting volunteers
big data and spatio-temporal analysis
MAPS

10. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 10
2013
2014
2015
MAPS

11. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Then, we realized that…
11
MAPS
cheap but inaccurate.. friends and students..
The data is small, sparse, and nothing we can analyze
low-cost sensors recruiting volunteers
big data and spatio-temporal analysis

12. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
After MAPS met LASS (2015/9)
12
MAPS
I don’t think we can overcome the scalability issue
Why are we always reinventing the wheels?
I really want to build a “participatory sensing” system

13. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
What is LASS?
13

14. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Then, the journey starts
14
Announcement for
the 1st TW field try
2015/10/17
2015/11/29-2015/12/12
LASS 1st TW field try
LASS 1st gathering
2015/12/20
Supported by G0V
2016/2/9
Demo in a south-eastern
Asia environmental
research conference
2016/2/29
AirBox Taipei launched
2016/3/22 AirBox New Taipei
launched
2016/8/19
AirBox Kaohsiung launched
2016/7/26
CENTRA kickoff
2016/3/30
Maker Faire Taipei
2016/5/7,8
GCTC
2016/6/13,14
LASS conference
2016/7/23
2016/7/30
Prof. Shinji (JPN)
2016/4
Prof. Lim (SIN)

15. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
The journey is speeding up
• from 1 to 100 to 1,000 devices
• from 10km to 1km to 100m density
• from Taiwan to Asia, to the world
• involving academia, community,
industry, and government
15
It’s not just a system by someone or some people.
It’s an ecosystem by MANY parties of same goals.

16. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
The ecosystem in a nutshell
16
The core spirit: open hardware/software/data

17. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 17
The basis: lots of dirty works and experiments
compare to
TSI AM510
compare to
GRIMM Model 1.109
consistency test
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
CDF
∆PM 2.5 (µg/m3)
G3
Sharp-D
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
CDF
∆PM 1/2.5/10 (µg/m3)
PM1
PM2.5
PM10
The ecosystem in a nutshell
The core spirit: open hardware/software/data

18. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
The ecosystem in a nutshell
18
The pattern: from academia to community to industry
academia: focus on core issues
community: rapid POC
industry: reliable production
The basis: lots of dirty works and experiments
The core spirit: open hardware/software/data

19. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
The ecosystem in a nutshell
19
The pattern: from academia to community to industry
The basis: lots of dirty works and experiments
The core spirit: open hardware/software/data
The lesson:TPE deployment

20. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
The ecosystem in a nutshell
20
The wish: from TW to the world
The pattern: from academia to community to industry
The basis: lots of dirty works and experiments
The core spirit: open hardware/software/data
The lesson:TPE deployment

21. 21
What are we going to cover in this talk?
1. Why is PM2.5 important?
2. How did we build the system?
3. What is the current status?
4. What is the next step?

22. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 22
The devices

23. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 23
Device Dashboard

24. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 24
Data Comparison

25. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 25
Open Data Service
A. the latest samples of LASS devices
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/last-all-lass.json
B. the latest samples of EPA stations
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/last-all-epa.json
C. the latest samples of AirBox devices
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/last-all-airbox.json
D. the latest samples of ProbeCube devices
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/last-all-probecube.json
E. the latest samples of Webduino devices
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/last-all-webduino.json
F. the latest sample of one particular device
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/last.php?device_id=XXX
G. the last 1,000 samples of one particular device
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/history.php?device_id=XXX
H. the samples of one particular device on one particular date
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/history-date.php?device_id=XXX&date=2016-08-22
I. the latest sample of the nearest device
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/nearest.php

26. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Open Data Format
26
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format:
(C) (F) (G)

27. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 27
Voronoi Diagram
http://nrl.iis.sinica.edu.tw/LASS/GIS/voronoi/

28. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 28
DataVisualization by 3rd Party
http://airmap.g0v.asper.tw

29. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Statistics of the devices
29
Period: 2015/11/1 - 2016/6/6

30. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Statistics of the services
30
Period: 2016/2/1 - 2016/8/1

31. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Well, is this what we want?
31
sophisticated dashboard?
smartphones everywhere?

32. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Let’s think about it deeper…
32
Can we enable something that never could be
possible without LASS/AirBox?

33. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Example 1:Emission SourceTracking
33
Something happened on 2015/12/20
(UTC time)

34. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Example 2: Periodic Emission Source
34

35. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 35
Example 3:Abnormal Detection

36. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 36
Example 4: Environment Education

37. 37
What are we going to cover in this talk?
1. Why is PM2.5 important?
2. How did we build the system?
3. What is the current status?
4. What is the next step?

38. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Many issues remaining
38
Correlation with traffic and
stationary emission source
LASS/AirBox
device ranking
Smog forecast
Finer-grained PM2.5
dispersion model
Post-deployment
sensor calibration
On-demand
response
Government
policymaking

39. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Plenty of Opportunities
39

40. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
MAPS more cities
coming soon
AirBox is an Open Ecosystem
40

41. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
We look forward to collaboration
41
Become the first node in your city
Promote LASS/AirBox in your city
Work together on data analysis
Contribute your crazy ideas
and work together on that
Make your city smarter
based on this system

42. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Advertisements
• ASEAN IVO meeting on 2016/9/5,6
• LJ will give the keynote
• Dr. Lim Hock Beng will give the tutorial
• 15 AirBox (free) for volunteers
• LASS International Deployment Plan
• We plan to expand our deployment to
120+ countries by 2017/7
• Please follow us on Facebook
42

43. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Summary of the talk
• We present the AirBox ecosystem for
PM2.5 monitoring.
• The core spirit of the ecosystem is
“openness” for HW, SW, data, and mind.
• The journey is ongoing and speeding up;
and we look forward to your participation.
• More details (& hands-on) will be
given in ASEAN IVO/PRAGMA;
and feel free to follow us :)
43

44. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw)
Acknowledgement
• Government: TW EPA, TPE, KH, New
TPE, MOST, …
• Academia: AS-IIS, AS-RCEC, SUTD, …
• Industry: Edimax, Realtek, …
• Community: LASS, G0V, CENTRA,
CECEA, …
• Hard-working bees: my research teams,
students, interns, and many friends
44

45. Dr. Ling-Jyh Chen (cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw) 45
資 訊 科 學 研 究 所
地址：臺北市南港區研究院路二段128號
中央研究院 資訊科學研究所
郵件： cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw
網址： http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/~cclljj/
陳 伶 志
Institute of Information Science
Associate Research Fellow
128, Section 2, Academia Road
Institute of Information Science
Academia Sinica, Nankang
Taipei 11529, Taiwan
副 研 究 員
電話：(02)2788-3799 ext. 1702
傳真：(02)2782-4814
統編：04142327
Tel : +886-2-27883799 ext. 1702
Fax: +886-2-27824814
E-mail: cclljj@iis.sinica.edu.tw
http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/~cclljj/
博士 Ph.D.Ling-Jyh Chen