Focus: GS-III Science and Technology
Why in news?
Air Unique-quality Monitoring (AUM)
- The AUM system (patent pending) is an innovative application of the principles of laser backscattering, statistical mechanics, optoelectronics, artificial intelligence, machine/deep learning, and Internet of Things.
- It can identify, classify, and quantify various pollutants simultaneously (of orders of less than one part per billion) and meteorological parameters, with very high precision, sensitivity and accuracy.
- It has been found to be highly sensitive and accurate and capable of simultaneous detection and quantification of all air quality parameters and offers a number of merits over any of the currently available conventional systems.
- It is portable, compact, low powered and economical, works on plug and play system, requires no setting uptime, and no additional civil infrastructure for housing.
- This system can boost the nation’s efforts towards self-reliance in high-end technologies and can additionally be instrumental in supporting the endeavours in improving the nation’s health and economy.
Why was this necessary?
- World Health Organisation (WHO)’s reports show that the worsening state of poor air quality is responsible for more than 7.5 million fatalities worldwide annually.
- This highlights the necessity for accurate, yet cost-effective monitoring of air quality parameters as monitoring is critical to solution.
- The current systems and technologies used for air quality monitoring are prohibitively expensive for wider deployment.
- This underlines the need for development of systems for real-time remote monitoring of relevant air quality parameters.
