Development of a prototype low cost optical particle counter

摘要

Aerodyne Research Incorporated (ARI) is an environmental research company which is interested in developing a low cost, high quality Optical Particle Counter (OPC), for integrating into the company's low cost sensor product line. This design utilizes a laser to scatter light off of a flow of aerosol particles entering the OPC, and pulses of scattered light are detected by a photodetector. The peak voltage of these pulses can be related to particle diameter through a calibration, and ultimately Particulate Matter (PM) can be calculated by analyzing the raw data from the OPC.;Controlled experiments were conducted and after data analysis, comparing the data recorded from the prototype OPC with a much more expensive OPC the two devices show good agreement. This prototype has laid the foundation for ARI to continue to develop this design, with the goal of having a commercial product on the market within two years after the completion of this thesis.