Development and Validation of Low-Cost IoT Environmental Sensors: A Case Study in Wuhan, China

Meteorological observations are the basis of the development of atmospheric science and meteorological research. Due to the complexity of the different scales and regional environments of cities, researchers have deployed intensive and sustainable low-cost environmental sensors throughout a large area. In this study, we developed a low-cost sensor integration device and data monitoring Internet of Things (IoT) platform that can automatically collect data on meteorological factors and transmit nearly real-time data. We deployed 252 units in Wuhan, some of which were compared with standard meteorological stations in the field. The correlation coefficient for the comparison of multiple devices with reference stations was greater than 0.9. The relative deviation and mean absolute error (MAE) were small. This study demonstrates the feasibility of this low-cost integrated sensor and its great potential in regional meteorological observations.