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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1685
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1685
19 Jun 2024
 | 19 Jun 2024

Performance Evaluation of Atmotube Pro sensors for Air Quality Measurements

Aishah Shittu, Kirsty Pringle, Stephen Arnold, Richard Pope, Ailish Graham, Carly Reddington, Richard Rigby, and James McQuaid

Abstract. This study presents a performance evaluation of eight Atmotube Pro sensors using US Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) guidelines. The Atmotube Pro sensors were collocated side-by-side with a reference-grade FIDAS monitor in an outdoor setting for a 14-week period. The result of the assessment showed the Atmotube Pro sensors had a coefficient of variation (CoV) of 23 %, 15 % and 13 % for minutes, hourly and daily PM2.5 data averages, respectively. The PM2.5 data was cleaned prior to analysis to improve reproducibility between units. 6 out of 8 Atmotube Pro sensor units had particularly good precision. The inter-sensor variability assessment showed two sensors with low bias and one sensor with a higher bias in comparison with the sensor average. Simple univariate analysis was sufficient to obtain good fitting quality to a FIDAS reference-grade monitor (R2 > 0.7) at hourly averages although, poorer performance was observed using a higher time resolution of 15 minutes averaged PM2.5 data (R2; 0.43–0.54). The average error bias, root mean square error (RMSE) and normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) were 4.19 µgm-3 and 2.17 % respectively. While there were negligible influences of temperature on Atmotube Pro measured PM2.5 values, substantial positive biases (compared to a reference instrument) occurred at relative humidity (RH) values > 80 %. The Atmotube Pro sensors correlated well with the purple air sensor (R2=0.86, RMSE=2.85 µgm-3). In general, the Atmotube Pro sensors performed well and passed the base testing metrics as stipulated by recommended guidelines for low-cost PM2.5 sensors.

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Journal article(s) based on this preprint

13 Feb 2025
Performance evaluation of Atmotube PRO sensors for air quality measurements in an urban location
Aishah I. Shittu, Kirsty J. Pringle, Stephen R. Arnold, Richard J. Pope, Ailish M. Graham, Carly Reddington, Richard Rigby, and James B. McQuaid
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 817–828, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-817-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-817-2025, 2025
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The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.

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The study highlighted the importance of data cleaning in improving the raw Atmotube Pro PM2.5...
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