The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around seven million people die every year from exposure to pollution. Cities and businesses need reliable, real-time information about air quality, noise pollution and industrial emissions to both guarantee their citizens’ quality of life and to protect the environment.
After seven years designing and deploying small air quality stations all over the world, Kunak Technologies is presenting the new Kunak AIR V3 Pro, an evolution of the company’s previous sensor-based air quality monitoring station designed to solve all the lifecycle challenges of a sensor-based air quality product, its operation, and maintenance. Kunak AIR Pro is a patent-pending multipollutant small air quality station based on a smart gas cartridges system to measure CO, CO2 , NO, NO2 , O3, SO2 , H2S, NH3, VOCs, PM1, PM2.5, and PM10.
Its multipollutant cutting-edge design includes environmental sensors, as well as connectors for external weather sensors or probes, which – together with its solar panel operation and real-time wireless data transmission – makes it the most advanced air quality monitoring station on the market, according to the company.
With a low cost of ownership and accurate measurement of target pollutants, the system is useful for cities, industries, and researchers that need to make better decisions based on supplementary systems with larger and more accurate data.
Smart gas cartridges system
Thanks to the company’s extensive experience working with gas sensors, its innovations solve many of the known issues of sensor technology, such as cross-sensibility, temperature effects, sensor variability, factory and field calibration, sensor replacement, network operation, and maintenance.
The Smart Gas Cartridges guarantee the control of the lifecycle of each sensor, making Kunak AIR Pro more sustainable, and making the life of Kunak’s clients easier. Kunak has made sensor replacement easy thanks to its GasPlug technology. The technology’s benefits include:
- Versatility – all the cartridges have the same size and fit in any of the five available sockets, to target specific applications and campaign needs.
- Smart – the electronics in the cartridge store details on type, age, and factory calibration.
- Real plug and play – when the new cartridge is plugged in, the base station reads the information, configures itself, and starts reading.
- Auto-diagnosis and auto-invalidation – a notification is sent when it’s time to replace the sensor.
- Fast replacement – replacement is carried out in the field in less than five minutes without opening the device or sending it off to the factory.
- Quality assurance and control – individual cartridge factory calibration is undertaken against traceable reference standards.
Using onboard sensors, the Kunak algorithm corrects the interferences and artifacts typically found in raw data, compensating environmental effects such as temperature, humidity and pressure (depending on the cartridge), as well as cross-sensitivities using onboard data. Concentrations are calculated in ppb and μg/m3 locally and in real-time.
Kunak AIR Pro does not require external reference data to calculate gas or particle concentrations. Zero and span calibration can be done via the Kunak Cloud web-based software. In addition, this new version will offer higher performance and greater autonomy, and is easier to use. This means placement is simple.
Multipurpose software
Thanks to a plug-and-play system, the user can buy the Kunak AIR Pro and start using it quickly. Multipurpose software Kunak’s web-based advanced platform for remote management of air quality networks and noise level analysis, Kunak Cloud, helps environmental professionals use and understand air quality data and delivers operational environmental intelligence to make informed decisions.
Thanks to the bidirectional software, Kunak Cloud offers professionals a new way to handle remote settings configuration, alarm management, calibration and field operations. It enables storage, analysis and exportation of data collected by any device or sensor, offering detailed information and advanced processing, therefore providing autonomy, mobility and scalability.
Kunak Cloud is a flexible modular software suite designed for easy user account management, network operation, data validation, analysis and reporting. The software also offers third-party integration via APIrest in ERP or SCADA and an on-premises version.
Kunak has clients in more than 20 countries and devices operating continuously across five continents. It is focused on technological development and innovation for environmental monitoring, and has invested more than US$3.5m in R&D. It is able to help organizations monitor and control critical parameters in real time, reduce costs, measure environmental impact and improve processes by providing accuracy, efficiency and economic benefits. The company also designs and manufactures wireless monitoring and control systems, environmental instrumentation, sensor networks and operational intelligence that ensure proper transmission and exploitation of information.
References
- Lewis, A C; von Schneidemesser, E, and Peltier, R E. Low-cost sensors for the measurement of atmospheric composition: overview of topic and future applications: valid as of May 2018.
- Schneider, P; Bartonova, A; Castell, N; Dauge, F R; Gerboles, M; Hagler, G S W; Hüglin, C; Jones, R L; Khan, S; Lewis, A C; Mijling, B; Müller, M; Penza, M; Spinelle, L; Stacey, B; Vogt, M; Wesseling, J, and Williams, R W. 2019. Toward a unified terminology of processing levels for low-cost air-quality sensors. Environmental Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b03950
