[The Hwankyung Ilbo] Environmental factors have recently been recognized as important in determining national health and quality of life. In particular, the inconvenience and anxiety of the people continue to increase as they face serious concerns over the health of the people due to the Covid-19 crisis.

In response, the Korea Indoor Environment Association (Chairman, Jung Sang-ki) held the 3rd Korea Indoor Air Forum at COEX in Seoul on the 9th under the theme of IoT and AI Ventilation, Air Cleaning, and Quarantine Smart Air Quality Management Technology.

More than 100 people attended the forum, including Chung Sang-ki, chairman of the Korea Indoor Environment Association, Konkuk University, Lee Sang-rak, president of the Korea Institute of Testing, Jeong Yeon-soo, vice chairman of the Urban Railway Cooperative, and Lee Young-sik. 

"Today's forum is a time when the public sector is actively seeking to improve air quality by using ICT to measure air quality, and it is time for the measurement industry and the air control industry to converge rapidly to further develop."

The following people have presented thier topics in the forum▷ Shin Ji-woong, chairman of the Korea Green Architectural Technology Association, ▷ Choi Jin-young, head of the Seoul Transportation Corporation's Air Quality Management Plan, Park Min-ho, head of KTADX Convergence Research Institute.
 

Reliability of air quality management using ICT and IoT needs to be increased:  

The public sector's move to improve air quality by using information and communication technology (ICT) to measure fine dust is brisk. This requires a proper understanding of the technical characteristics of related manufacturing and equipment and the construction of systems.

As a result, industries are focusing on establishing IoT (Internet of Things) and ICT-based fine dust measurement systems, and are actively utilizing ICT such as IoT, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to quickly and accurately measure and effectively manage air quality.

"Clear solutions should be provided through ICT and IoT technologies to manage air quality so that invisible air can be trusted," said Kim Hak-kyum, chairman of the Korea Ventilation Industry Association.

Chairman Kim said the key is to change the perception of "housing" as a task that needs to be solved through ventilation facilities. "We need a clean, safe, sustainable air quality management facility to base healthcare for individuals' health and lives, not just using it for space," he said.

"Technology should not be improvised and used according to the times, and it should be developed to facilitate weighing and management through continuous research of GreenSmart AI ventilation facilities in the future," he said.

Shin Ji-woong, chairman of the Korea Green Architecture Technology Association, said, "As a result of analyzing factors that make indoor air bad, outdoor air inflow is 25%, material emission is 27%, and human activity is 48%. Since pollutants in building materials are difficult to control and the harmful effects of the human body are relatively high, strict predictions and improvement measures are needed." 

It also points out the current problems of indoor air quality evaluation methods, saying, "Diversity of embedded materials emitting pollutants, absence of related research makes it very difficult to accurately measure indoor air quality. "It is urgent to introduce CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) technology in Korea," he said. "CFD technology is faster and more accurate than conventional methods when predicting indoor air quality, and above all, it can be applied as an alternative in the design stage. This can prevent problems that may occur after construction from deteriorating air quality in advance."

Lastly, Chung Sang-ki, chairman of the Korea Indoor Environment Association, said, "Based on the world's No. 1 competitiveness in ICT, the association has established a Korea Indoor Air Quality Management Center using digital infrastructures such as 5G network, AI, and blockchain."

"The word crisis means that there is an opportunity in it, and the Corona 19 crisis is also an opportunity for us to lead the world in the air industry," he said. "I hope this forum, which will be held regularly, will give us many jobs and hopes in the air industry."