Comparative Evaluation of New Low-Cost Particulate Matter Sensors

In recent times, a few new low-cost sensors have been introduced to the global market for monitoring particulate matter (PM). In this paper, the performance of three such low-cost PM sensors, namely SDS011, Prana Air, and SPS30, for measuring PM
2.5
and PM 10 levels is evaluated against a standard reference Aeroqual Series-500. The test setup was exposed to PM concentrations ranging from 30 µg/cm
³
to 600 µ g/cm
³
. The results were based on 1 min, 15 min, 30 min, and 1 hr average readings. The experiments were carried out in indoor as well as outdoor environments. The comparative evaluation was performed before and after calibration. The performance of these sensors is evaluated in terms of coefficient of determination R
²
), coefficient of variation (C
v
) and root mean square error (RMSE). Evaluation results show that these low-cost sensors have good performance after calibration with a reference sensor.