Urban air pollution is a major problem in many cities globally. Prolonged exposure to particulate matter in the air is harmful to health. Government agencies and industries use expensive EPA-rated Air Quality Monitoring Systems (AQMS) with specialized and expensive instruments. However, the air quality data provided by agencies is based on delayed averages and is region-based. The AirQ platform is a smart and cost-effective solution for air quality monitoring. The AirQ device is portable, low-cost and provides real-time and location-specific air quality data. It supports wireless data communication technologies including WiFi, 4G, Bluetooth, LoRa, etc. We have developed an ontology-based backend to support data management and the implementation of smart data analytics algorithms. The real-time air quality data and alerts are provided by the AirQ Dashboard and Smartphone App. The AirQ platform can be used to build large-scale and high-density air quality monitoring networks for Smart Cities, with devices deployed at many locations such as schools, childcare centers, hospitals, community centers, bus stops, parks, etc.

Conventional IoT infrastructure deployments require complex configurations and management at the sensor devices, gateway and the backend levels. We have developed a smart ontology-driven IoT platform which can significantly improve the scalability and efficiency of the deployment and management of large-scale IoT infrastructures. The platform provides a unified ontology management layer across the sensor devices, IoT gateway and IoT backend. It also provides a virtualization-based IoT gateway which supports the interoperability of sensor devices with heterogeneous network protocols.