Today was a great day as uRADMonitor was a double winner in Paris, at the closing event of the International AIRLAB 2023 Microsensors Challenge. This year, the Challenge took a daring approach, running sensor tests in 3 locations, two in France and one in Thailand. The latter contributed with a new set of valuable data as the competing sensors were tested in a climate with high humidity.

The closing event announced the winners and drew valuable conclusions on the technological progress, the novelties and the results. The ceremony was held both in Paris and Bangkok at the same time, with the two locations interconnected via a virtual link, bringing together a strong core of experts and policy makers. The closing report with all the conclusion is available here.

The 4th AIRLAB Microsensors Challenge 2023

Now in its fourth edition, the competition called to investigate the impact of new parameters on microsensors. Also the testing was extended to include a wider list of tracked gases. For us here at uRADMonitor this was amazing news because we have a vast portfolio of multi-parameter sensors and so AIRPARIF provided an excellent chance to have more evaluation data on the lesser known parameters, such as carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and other gases. Traditionally , people tend to look more at Particulate Matter also due to the ease of measurements and availability of sensor solutions and various gases are left aside. This doesn’t mean the impact of these other parameters is negligible, on the contrary.

Of course, testing so many parameters will be a difficult task so AIRLAB’s initiative is both welcome but also a tremendous mission in terms of logistics and human effort. A task that they successfully handled.

Three testing locations including tropical climate testing

The candidates underwent testing on several categories, including both indoor and outdoor, fixed and mobile but also accuracy categories that include awareness (informative) and monitoring (very high requirements). In total there were 3 main classes: Outdoor Air, Indoor Air and Citizen Air.

For the 2023 of the Microsensors Challenge, AIRPARIF proposed to investigate the impact of new parameters on microsensors’ performance, and more specifically: higher pollution levels; different emissions profiles; and different weather conditions, especially higher temperatures and humidity. In that regard, Thailand has been identified as a country meeting all these criteria. The outdoor and indoor test sites are two separate locations in France.

uRADMonitor participated with a total of 30 uRADMonitor devices of various types, that shipped for this 4th Edition, both to France and Thailand. The devices include our multi-parameter products like the successful “uRADMonitor MODEL A3” and the “uRADMonitor CITY” but also our dedicated solutions for particulate matter – the “uRADMonitor SMOGGIE“, for carbon dioxide the “uRADMonitor SMOGGIE-CO2” and for carbon monoxide “uRADMonitor SMOGGIE-GAS-CO“.

Given the new testing ground in Thailand, an interesting innovation was added to the uRADMonitor SMOGGIE specifically designed for the AIRLAB 2023 Competition: an embedded air heater that raises temperature to about 80 degrees in order to regulate humidity before it reaches the sensing elements and normalise particulate matter readings:

This clever approach improves the SMOGGIE particulate matter response during cold months, were low temperatures and humidity can lead to the formation of atomised water that induces false positives on optical sensor readings. The new variant is called SMOGGIE-PM-HEAT and will soon become available in our shop. It was specifically designed for the AIRLAB testing in Thailand and despite the technical complexity manages to keep the compact shape by a clever air path design:

uRADMonitor prides itself on innovative technical solutions that improve the performance of its own products and differentiate them from the competition. We look forward to the results of this competition.

The Winners

Congratulations to all the winners! uRADMonitor was among the Winners, with our uRADMonitor SMOGGIE winning at two leads, the Outdoor AIR Monitoring and the Outdoor AIR Awareness.

The uRADMonitor SMOGGIE and SMOGGIE-PM-HEAT took the top at the star score (overall performance) , a criteria that is a sum of multiple parameters analysed by the competition, including accuracy, cost, Form factor, usability and utility, surpassing many other known competition titles on the market:

Details reports and valuable judges feedback are available on the excellent AIRPARIF real time reporting tool, a software interface that gives details on the performance of all the sensors involved in the competition.

We loved the details we received from the AIRPARIF experts and we will try to implement them for the next editions.

Jury’s opinion on The SMOGGIE-PM-HEAT: “.. is a newer version of the SMOGGIE that integrates a small heating system for high humidity enviromnents. It remains a very small and very lightweight sensor system targetting particle measurements for outdoor applications. It provided a similar accuracy performance to the basic SMOGGIE” , or on the uRADMonitor SMOGGIE:

Jury’s opinion ” The SMOGGIE is a very small and very lightweight sensor system targetting particle measurements for outdoor applications. In this edition it provided very good overall accuracy performance in France and good performance in Thailand. Its overall performance, an particularly its form factor and low cost, make it an excellent choice for awareness raising applications.”

A Thank you note

The 2023 AIRLAB Microsensors Challenge is organised with the support of the Clean Air Fund, the French Development Agency (AFD), the French Ecological Transition Agency (ADEME), Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the French Embassy in Thailand as part of the French-Thai Year of Innovation. In partnership with: Asian Institute of Technology, Atmo France, Atmo Hauts de France, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment / Observatoire de la Qualité de l’Air Intérieur, EMPA, FIMEA, National Institute of Metrology Thailand, UN-ESCAP, and the World Meteorological Organisation. 

This edition involved a very complex allocation of resources handled by many skilled people and it worked flawlessly. We appreciate the contribution to human knowledge brought by evaluating the many products available on the market and mapping all the advantages they provide. And of course, we are grateful for the recognition we received with the two prizes.

Useful resources

The AIRLAB 2023 competition website: https://airlab.solutions/en/projets/challenge-microcapteurs-edition-2023-189

The document summarising the conclusions: https://airlab.solutions/sites/default/files/2023-11/AirparifDossier09_microcapteurs_Anglais_web.pdf

The extremely valuable real time reporting tool , where you can browse through the tens of sensors involved in the competition, and you can learn more on they pros and cons while inter-comparing they accuracy, cost and other important parameters: https://airparif.shinyapps.io/2023ChallengeResultsEN/