Development of Air Quality Monitoring Remote Sensor Using a Digital SLR Camera

This paper reports that a digital single-lens reflex (SLR) camera can be applied as a remote sensor for monitoring the concentrations of particulate matter less than 10 micron (PM₁₀). An algorithm was developed based on the regression analysis of relationship between the measured reflectance and the reflected components from a surface material and the atmosphere. This algorithm converts multispectral image pixel values acquired from this camera into quantitative values of the concentrations of PM₁₀. These computed PM₁₀ values were compared to other standard values measured by a DustTrak™ meter. The correlation results showed that the newly develop algorithm produced a high degree of accuracy as indicated by high correlation coefficient (R²) of 0.75 and low root-mean- square-error (RMS) of ±5 μg/m³.