While Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and ammonia have a place in our daily lives, their leakage into the environment is harmful to human health. In order to prevent and detect gaseous leaks of harmful VOCs, a cyber-physical system (CPS) comprised of ordinary people or first responders is proposed. This CPS uses small, low-cost sensors coupled to smart phones or mobile devices with the necessary computation and communication capabilities.

Fire Departments including CALFIRE used to have look-out towers in forests. However look-out towers are costly to maintain. Our project aims to empower ordinary citizens to take charge in collecting real time environmental data that can be used to serve a common interest. Volunteers can be part of a CPS. They can use their smart phones to take picture of a wildfire and upload it to a server. Each volunteer will be a node of the CPS.  The server is responsible for collecting and processing information in the defined coverage area. The coverage area will be divided into coverage grids.

This project aims to empower ordinary citizens to take charge in collecting real time environmental data that can be used to serve a common interest. The target application of the project is a cyber-physical system for detecting small amounts of explosive vapor in the air so as to protect large-area public gatherings. In this system, extremely low-cost explosive sensors, handed out free of charge, will be connected to the smart phones of the willing participants, effectively turning each one of them into a look-out sensor node.