A Cost-Effective IoT System for Monitoring Indoor Radon Gas Concentration

Abstract

Radon is a noble gas originating from the radioactive decay chain of uranium or thorium. Most radon emanates naturally from the soil and from some building materials, so it can be found in many places around the world, in particular in regions with soils containing granite or slate. It is almost impossible for a person to detect radon gas without proper tools, since it is invisible, odorless, tasteless and colorless. The problem is that a correlation has been established between the presence of high radon gas concentrations and the incidence of lung cancer. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that the exposure to radon is the second most common cause of lung cancer after smoking, and it is the primary cause of lung cancer among people who have never smoked. Although there are commercial radon detectors, most of them are either expensive or provide very limited monitoring capabilities. To tackle such an issue, this article presents a cost-effective IoT radon gas remote monitoring system able to obtain accurate concentration measurements. It can also trigger events to prevent dangerous situations and to warn users about them. Moreover, the proposed solution can activate mitigation devices (e.g., forced ventilation) to decrease radon gas concentration. In order to show its performance, the system was evaluated in three different scenarios corresponding to representative buildings in Galicia (Spain), a region where high radon gas concentrations are common due to the composition of the soil. In addition, the influence of using external hardware (i.e., WiFi transceivers and an embedded System-on-Chip (SoC)) next to the radon gas sensor is studied, concluding that, in the tested scenarios, they do not interfere with the measurements.

Year 2020: A Snapshot of the Last Progress in Flexible Printed Gas Sensors

“…It derives from the decay of radium and uranium and it is naturally emitted from soil and rocks and transported through water, or environmental carrier gases. It represents half of the radiation exposure to human being and a long-term contact could induce lung cancer [129][130][131].…”

Towards Next Generation Teaching, Learning, and Context-Aware Applications for Higher Education: A Review on Blockchain, IoT, Fog and Edge Computing Enabled Smart Campuses and Universities

“…Finally, the most external circle of Figure 1 indicates specific smart areas that are usually involved in the daily activities carried out in a smart campus/university. For example, smart plug-and-play objects [29] may be involved in many university activities, whereas certain environmental sensors are essential for actuating on smart buildings [30]. There are also other fields, like smart agriculture, that may be specific for smart campuses that include in their premises areas for growing certain crops that may require the use of autonomous decision-support systems [31].…”

Developing a Secure Low-Cost Radon Monitoring System

“…There was also some research done in the same region as this work, for instance [17] where the researchers bypassed a commercial device (Safety Siren Pro Series 3 Radon Gas Detector), used for instantaneous or continuous measurements of radon gas concentration, to relay the information to their system via a WiFi SoC. However, it lacked the security aspect we think such a system should have and we think just WiFi connectivity is not the appropriate approach, as previously explained.…”