Monitoring Air Quality of Dhaka using IoT: Effects of COVID-19

Air pollution and COVID-19 both are the most provocative issue nowadays. Air pollution holds a dangerous impact on the COVID-19 issue as well as human health. The urban cities like Dhaka are under stress to remain habitable. With the huge density of transportation and population, air quality index is to be monitored minutely and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is to be observed. It is required to develop an Internet of Things based remote monitoring system to observe the air particularity in the different areas of the Dhaka city and make a comparison between the before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The platform aims to track out the concentration of gases in the Dhaka City like carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen di-oxides (NO
₂
) on real-time that provides air quality index (AQI). Using Arduino based Node MCU and the sensors are to detect substantive conditions of gases. ESP-32 Wi-Fi module is used to send the data to the server so that it can be accessed from anywhere. The data is taken before and during COVID-19 period with the developed IoT platform. It shows the difference between the CO and NO
₂
emission on the impact of the pandemic with the measured value. This study will help us to make further decisions and action regarding air pollution.