Networked air quality monitoring system

A method for operating an air quality monitoring system comprising:

• collecting air quality data from a plurality of air quality monitoring instruments, wherein the plurality of air quality monitoring instrument includes one or more wireless mobile devices configured to transmit particle count data from an optical particle counter using a public communication network, at least one of the air quality monitoring instruments comprises a robotic optical particle counter having a controller programmed to receive operating instructions from a remotely positioned control system and calibrated to measure a number of airborne particles passing through a beam of light;
• periodically transmitting an air quality data record from each of the plurality of air quality monitoring instruments, each data record including a date, time stamp, particle count data, instrument identification and geographic coordinates of each air quality monitoring instrument transmitting the data record wherein the at least one robotic optical particle counter transmits data records with an instrument identification that identifies the robotic optical particle counter as a robotic device, using the public communication network;
• receiving the air quality data records from each of the plurality of air quality monitoring instruments that are aggregated to create an aggregate data set of air quality over a geographic area, and
• automatically generating a revised air quality map using the geographic coordinates of the time stamped data records from each of the plurality of air quality monitoring instrument.