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Air pollution is one of the major global environmental and health challenges, with direct impacts on public health, quality of life, and urban sustainability.
Cities, in particular, face: high spatial variability of pollutants, heavy reliance on traffic and human activities, and the limitations of traditional monitoring systems, which are costly and lack widespread coverage.
Recent technological advancements such as the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and high-performance computing (HPC) are opening up new possibilities for more accurate and timely monitoring.
However, the critical challenge remains of transforming large amounts of heterogeneous data into operational decision-support tools that go beyond mere monitoring and visualization to also incorporate predictive and decision-making capabilities.
AERQ is an advanced decision support system (DSS) for urban air quality.
The platform integrates diverse data from IoT sensors, traffic, weather conditions, and satellite observations, and uses the AERMOD atmospheric dispersion model.
The computationally intensive processing is performed on HPC infrastructure, while the results are made available through a configurable interactive web platform (e.g., selection of pollutants, vehicle density and type, and routes).
The system enables users to:
The AERMOD system has been calibrated and validated for the pollutant NO₂ in the city of Cagliari, showing good agreement with observed data. Furthermore, the system has demonstrated the ability to perform complex simulations significantly faster than traditional methods..
Il sistema consente di:
Il sistema AERMOD è stato calibrato e validato per l’inquinante NO₂ nella città di Cagliari, mostrando una buona concordanza con i dati osservati. Inoltre, il sistema ha dimostrato la capacità di eseguire simulazioni complesse in tempi significativamente più rapidi rispetto ai metodi tradizionali.
Theme:
ICT
Domain
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Specialization area:
Decision Support Systems
Specialization area:
Air Quality
Type of innovation:
incremental
Product type:
software
Emerging technologies
adopted:
Calcolo scientifico ad alte prestazioni; Big Data; IoT; Calcolo parallelo; Piattaforme web interattive.
Stage of technological
development:
TRL 6-7
Limitations:
To perform well, it requires access to high-performance computing systems
Intellectual property characteristics:
proprietary code
Other partners:
No
Pierluigi Cau
– industrial collaborations
– pilot projects and demonstrators
– technology transfer (licensing)
For information: valorisation@crs4.it
Last update: 25/03/2026
Centro di Ricerca, Sviluppo e Studi Superiori in Sardegna
