Rice husk/dust air particle sensor using zigbee wireless sensor network

• Main Author: Zakaria, Noor Shazliza
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: TH Building construction; TH6014-6081 Environmental engineering of buildings. Sanitary engineering of buildings
• Online Access: http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/6711/

Air pollution is one of the most important factors affecting the quality of life and health. For a factory that directly producing a lot of dust due to its processing factor, a good air quality factor is very much needed. For this project, a problem faced by a Rice Mill Factory located in Pering, Kedah Darul Aman was taken into account. The factory needs to provide a good air quality surrounding not only for its employee but also for the neighbouring villagers as well. A 24 hours production time also contributed to its pollution factor and the level of exposure met by the employee during the work shift needs to be considered as well. To overcome this problem, a low cost sensor needs to be developed. Rice Husk/Dust Air Particle Sensor using ZigBee Wireless Sensor Network is developed using SHARP GP2Y1010AU0F optical dust sensor as the measurement tools, an Arduino Fio board was used as the development board for its expansion capabilities using ZigBee Wireless Modules. A point to point approached was developed with the data being transmitted back to its host computer, and a serial port is used to read the HEX string data. Parallax Microcontroller Acquisition to Excel (PLX DAQ) software is used to read the string data and save it to Microsoft Excel software. Using Visual Basic Application on Microsoft Excel, a graph displaying the dust measurement can be viewed on the real time basis. The differences of readings from SHARP GP2Y1010AU0F optical dust sensor and value obtained by DOSH Competency Consultant Company were than compared. Conclusively, the sensor and methods used for this project is substantial enough to monitor the dust density for respirable dust pollution in the Rice Mill Factory.