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Sensor Evaluation Report
Citation:
Williams, R., R. Long, M. Beaver, A. Kaufman, F. Zeiger, M. Heimbinder, I. Hang, R. Yap, B. Acharya, B. Ginwald, K. Kupcho, S. Robinson, O. Zaouak, B. Aubert, M. Hannigan, R. Piedrahita, N. Masson, B. Moran, M. Rook, P. Heppner, C. Cogar, N. Nikzad, AND W. Griswold. Sensor Evaluation Report. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-14/143 (NTIS PB2015-100611), 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory’s (NERL’s) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD’s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA’s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
This report is the result of low cost air quality sensor performance trials conducted in the NERL’s on-site laboratories located in the Research Triangle Park, NC during 2012-2013. Such trials were viewed as highly valuable for all parties following the conclusion of the U.S. EPA’s Air Sensor and APPs sensor conference (ASAP, 2012) conducted in the spring of 2012. Conference attendees from a wide range of interests (government, sensor development, citizen scientists, etc) concluded that basic sensor performance characteristics of available sensor technologies were unknown. In fact, many potential users of such technology were unaware that data quality of such sensors needed to be established or how one might perform such determinations. Many conference attendees shared that the U.S. EPA needed to take a leadership role to both educate sensor developers and end users about needed performance standards, share technical information about how one would establish such characteristics, and foster continuing dialogue between all interested parties on this subject matter.