Evaluation of Low-Cost Particulate Matter (PM) Sensors: A Preliminary Investigation

The new generation of low cost and highly portable Particulate Matter (Williams et al.) sensors, which offer significant advantages in terms of compact site and low cost; opens an exciting opportunity for people to use such sensors for a wide range of applications. Them have been an increased number of studies focusing on the evaluation and calibration of various PM sensor systems, but how these sensors actually perform in the real situation still remains unknown to the society. In this study, three low-cost PM sensors based on fight scattering and two commercial high-cost PM monitoring products were tested to preliminarily investigate their performances in three realistic indoor environmental settings (incense burning, spraying air freshener, and spraying whiteboard cleaner) to help us understand their availability, usability, and overall feasibility. Two metrics, i.e., response time and the linearity of response are selected as the evaluation indexes. A preliminary investigation of low-cost PM sensors' potential applications with building automation system in smart buildings is resented. The conclusion suggests that low-cost sensors perform reasonably well in quick high response and yield good linearities. Besides, low-cost sensors have a potential for smart building applications including building filtration control.