WENDY: a wireless environmental monitoring device prototype

Recent studies show how air quality monitoring activities are fundamental because the environment has always played a vital role in the life-cycle of an artwork/monument, due to interaction with the materials. For this reason, we propose and present a measuring device able to detects different parameters. The device is instrumented with a microcontroller that detects signals from an inertial sensor with nine degrees of freedom, a sensor for climate parameters, four gas sensors (SO2, O3, NO, NO2), a lux-meter and particles matter analyzer. The goal of this study is to realize a small- size and low-cost sensor system able to evaluate and classify the effects of different factors in an original way: through a global Risk Index. The proposed and projected system allows monitoring: (a) daily thermal variations; (b) the vibrations that occur on the structure and (c) pollutant – both reductant, oxidant and deposit agents. In this paper, the structure (hardware and software) of the environmental monitoring device is presented and expounded in detail. A Risk Analysis Algorithm is proposed and evaluated. It shows how the global degrading risk is always lower than the threshold level, even if the single compound could exceed its own threshold.