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Active Self-Testing Noise Measurement Sensors for Large-Scale Environmental Sensor Networks This publication appears in: Sensors Authors: F. Dominguez, C. Nguyen, F. Reinoso Carvalho, A. Touhafi and K. Steenhaut Volume: 13 Issue: 12 Pages: 17241-17264 Publication Date: Dec. 2013
Abstract: Large-scale noise pollution sensor networks consist of hundreds of spatially distributed microphones that measure environmental noise. These networks provide historical and real-time environmental data to citizens and decision makers and are therefore a key technology to steer environmental policy. However, the high cost of certified environmental microphone sensors render large-scale environmental networks prohibitively expensive. Several environmental network projects have started using off-the-shelf low-cost microphone sensors to reduce their costs, but these sensors have higher failure rates and produce lower quality data. To offset this disadvantage, we developed a low-cost noise sensor that actively checks its condition and indirectly the integrity of the data it produces. The main design concept is to embed a 13 mm speaker in the noise sensor casing and, by regularly scheduling a frequency sweep, estimate the evolution of the microphone's frequency response over time. This paper presents our noise sensor's hardware and software design together with the results of a test deployment in a large-scale environmental network in Belgium. Our middle-range-value sensor (around 50 euros) effectively detected all experienced malfunctions, in laboratory tests and outdoor deployments, with a few false positives. Future improvements could further lower the cost of our sensor below 10 euros. External Link.
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