
Traditional air quality monitoring systems, which rely on sparsely deployed fixed stations, offer limited spatial resolution and lack agility to detect fast-changing, hyper-local pollution patterns. We propose a resilient air pollution monitoring framework built on a mobile wireless sensor network (WSN), composed of sensor-equipped public vehicles, delivery fleets, and autonomous platforms. These nodes navigate urban environments, collecting environmental data, providing real-time, high-resolution coverage. To ensure energy-efficient and reliable communication, we introduce a hierarchical, zone-based data routing protocol combined with virtual network zoning. Each zone is mapped to a hexagonal cell, served by a fixed access point (AP), with sensor nodes dynamically clustering within these zones to minimize long-distance transmissions. Time-division multiple access (TDMA) scheduling governs local and global data transfers, while sleep scheduling extends node lifetime. The system computes the Air Quality Index (AQI) pollutant readings, supports scalable deployment across dense urban environments, and maintains low computational complexity.
Azadeh Vosoughi
Christopher Simpson
Teon McFarlan
William Wright
Soheil Sabri
Benjamin Lee
Kyle Shervington