Rapid Optical Screening Tool-Commercialization of Air Force Developed Tunable Laser Spectrometer for Environmental Characterization and Monitoring

摘要

The cost of characterizing and monitoring U.S. government hazardous waste sites could exceed $100 billion utilizing traditional methods and technology. New sensor technologies are being developed to meet the nation's environmental remediation and compliance programs. In 1993, Armstrong Laboratory and Unisys Corporation signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) to commercialize fiber optic laser-induced fluorescence technology that had been developed with Air Force at North Dakota State University (NDSU). A consortia consisting of the CRDA partners, Dakota Technologies Inc., and NDSU submitted a proposal to the Advanced Research Projects Agency, Technology Reinvestment Project and won an award funding the commercialization. The result, Rapid Optical Screening Tool or ROST is a state-of-the-art laser spectroscopy system for analysis of aromatic hydrocarbon-contaminated soil and groundwater. With ROST, environmental investigators are able to find, classify, and map the distribution of many hazardous chemicals in the filed instead of waiting for reports to come back from the analytical laboratory. The Tri-Service research and development program leading to prototype laser spectrometers is summarized along with the technology transition. Results from laboratory and field demonstrations will illustrate the current system performance.