The performance assessment of low-cost air pollution sensor in city and the prospect of the autonomous vehicle for air pollution reduction

Urban air pollution is clearly a constantly growing problem and the high level of urban air pollution has been shown to pose a significant risk to city dwellers. It is necessary to have low-cost sensors for data collection, ready data source allowing normal citizen to access to and gain information, and have prospect solutions (e.g. autonomous vehicle) for air pollution reduction in the city. The aim of the study is to illustrate the drivers behind the use of low-cost sensors and to review the performance of sensors. In addition, autonomous vehicle is expected to reduce pollution; therefore, the paper analyzes the benefits and adoption of autonomous vehicles in the future. The challenges and outlook for both low-cost sensor deployment and the adoption of self-driving vehicle will also be discussed. A literature review is used to obtain these aims. The study indicates that the main driver of low-cost sensor is to provide high-density spatiotemporal pollution data, assisting in creating emission inventories of pollutants and detecting pollution hotspots without capital investments. A number of performance aspects considered include the coefficients of determination (R²), variance (CV), repeatability, reproducibly and stability of the sensor. Self-driving vehicle is promising in the change of travel patterns and having impacts on the health of society. Technology and economic challenges, the willingness to use the sensor and the autonomous policy approach are the major challenges. In terms of the outlook, standard guidelines and the calibration methods for low-cost sensors, energy consumption savings and policy supporting for autonomous vehicle should be further investigated.