Simularity won the Meeting of the Minds 2015 Industrial Hackathon with this project. We partnered with Yamaha, who has a prototype air quality sensor package for attaching to vehicles, called Vehicle as Probe or "VasP". The project involved attaching the VasP Unit to a vehicle and driving around the target city. That data was combined with census data for the city and imported into Simularity's AI engine and user interface. For the contest we demonstrated the analytics happening in real time as vehicles with VasPs attached drove around the city. The results were published to the web. The proposal is that VasP units be attached to all city vehicles so that residents and city planners can get both real-time hyper-local access to air pollution information, and also look at trends over time, spot anomalies, and predict problems. For a demo of the system, see https://youtu.be/BJG7HJ6yhqs

1. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved
Improving Quality Of Life And Environmental
Equity In Richmond With Mobile Air Quality
Sensors Combined With Census Data
Liz Derr, Co-Founder and CEO Yuichiro Kuzuryu, Hardware
Architect, New Venture Business
Development

2. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 2
The Problem: Richmond Is Home To Industries That Sometimes Pollute
August 25, 2012
Chevron’s Richmond
Refinery – the
company’s second
largest refinery – spewed
toxic smoke over
Richmond and San
Pablo sending more
than 14,000 people in
the East Bay to medical
facilities with smoke-
related complaints.

3. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 3
Richmond Has An Air Monitoring Website
3 Areas:
• Atchison
Village
• North
Richmond
• Point
Richmond
2 Locations Per Area: Refinery Fence Line and Community
Chevron might not be the only problem, or even the biggest problem, but all we’re
measuring is the air near the refinery, so how would we know?

4. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 4
Our Proposed Project
1. Attach mobile air quality sensors to city vehicles to get a
broad, real-time view of air quality throughout the city
2. Publish the real time air quality data for citizens to refer to
3. Use predictive analytics that combine air quality data with
census data for policy and planning insights

5. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 5
What We Did
Correlation
and Similarity
Calculations
REST API
Simularity
Knowledge
Base
Simularity
Intelligent
Agent
Simularity Created User Interface

6. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved
VasP Sensor Unit
air pollution sensors:
Ozone, NOx, SO2, CO, CO2, PM2.5, etc.
dimension
4x3x1.5
(estimation)
GPS
optional:
driving information
mobile battery or
connection to vehicle’s
electrical system
other sensors:
temperature, humidity, barometric pressure,
UV, ambient light, accelerometer, radiation, etc.
mobile connectivity
Mock-up of final product

7. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved
How To Attach The VasP
Neodymium Magnet or
Permanent Attachment
(theft prevention)

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Step 1: Connect The VasP To A Car And Collect Readings
Maiden Voyage!
Prototype VasP

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Step 2: Ingest VasP Readings Into UI and Correlation Engine

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Step 3: Ingest Census Data Into UI and Correlation Engine

11. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 11
Step 4: Combine Census Data With VasP Readings
VasP Data:
Nitrogen
Dioxide
Census
Data:
Median
Household
Income
High Median Income
Areas Had Worse NO2
Readings!
Studies on human populations indicate
that long-term exposure to NO2 levels
currently observed in Europe may
decrease lung function and increase the
risk of respiratory symptoms such as acute
bronchitis and cough and phlegm,
particularly in children.

12. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 12
Step 5: Find Correlations Between Census Data And VasP Readings
Correlation
Engine
Query:
Which Areas
Are
Correlated
With
Medium To
High (360 –
528) Levels
Of Nitrogen
Dioxide?

13. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 13
Step 5: Find Correlations Between Census Data And VasP Readings
VasP Data Details For
Tract 379000:
Tract 379000 is
Negatively Correlated
With Med-High NO2
Readings in tract
379000 that match the
med-high criteria (360-
528): 39 of 367 readings

14. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 14
Step 5: Find Correlations Between Census Data And VasP Readings
VasP Data:
Nitrogen
Dioxide
Details And
Correlations
For Census
Tract 386000
Log Likelihood Correlations
Between “Medium to High
NO2 Readings” and “All
Census Subgroups By Tract”

15. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 15
Product Readiness
Simularity Software
• Simularity’s Knowledge Base And Intelligent Agent Software Is Fully
Functional And Deployed At Several Customer Sites
• The User Interface Demonstrated Is Fully Functional
VasP Unit
• Prototyping stage now, launch next year

16. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved
VasP Launch Schedule
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
pilot launch (beta version)
official launch
beta version development
funding
additional research
company build

17. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 17
Competition Categories Of Our Project
• Healthy living: Real-time hyper-local air quality measurements available to the public
help citizens with Asthma or other respiratory issues plan
• Energy efficiency: measuring hyper-local CO2 emissions can indicate areas for
reducing emissions
• Urban Sustainability: hyper-local air quality metrics, available online in real time give a
broader picture of the air quality per neighborhood vs. static measuring stations
• Great Outdoors:
• Provides a citizen facing information service that provides historical and real-time
information about environmental air quality
• Enhances existing datasets (census data) through additional environmental
sensors (gathered from VasP)
• Enhances the value of new datasets in terms of community-and/or policy impact
(correlations of census information with hyper-local air quality data)
• Environmental justice/equity considerations:
• Which neighborhoods are suffering the most?
• Which locations are polluting the most?

18. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 18
Project Affordability
• Simularity’s knowledge base and intelligent agent
software is licensed by usage and can be installed on
premise or hosted.
• The user interface can be customized by any web
developers.
• The VasP unit pricing is projected to be in the range of
$50 to $150.

19. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved 19
Features For Future Phases
• Calibrate the sensor readings and establish
appropriate safety levels
• Allow citizens to sign up for hyper-local text alerts
when dangerous air quality situations exist in their
neighborhood
• Add additional sensors, measure noise levels
• Create VasPs that can be purchased by citizen
scientists and attached to their own cars or homes
and allow citizens to view their own VasP data

20. © Copyright 2015 Simularity. All Rights Reserved
1160 Brickyard Cove Road, Suite 200
Point Richmond, CA 94801
United States
+ 1 415-819-5731
liz@simularity.com
THANK YOU
@simularity
https://www.youtube.com/c/simularity
www.simularity.com