Stand-off measurement of industrial air pollutant emissions from unmanned aircraft

摘要

This paper investigates the stand-off measurement of atmospheric pollutant concentrations and air quality parameters around industrial complexes. The theoretical investigation considers a robust, accurate and inexpensive measurement system based on tuneable Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), calibrated reflectors and imaging systems. The equipment is deployed in two non-collocated components. The source component is installed on board an unmanned aircraft. The sensor component is constituted by a reflector calibrated for reflectance, a rail-mounted infrared camera calibrated for radiance and highly wavelength-selective optics. The system is conceived to perform Differential Absorption LIDAR (DIAL) measurements of selected molecular pollutants and a model-based estimation of aerosol pollutant concentrations by means of suitably developed inversion algorithm. The relevant opportunities and challenges, and the viability of the system in the intended operational environments are discussed. Numerical simulation results show promising performances in term of estimated error budget even in degraded meteorological conditions, which are comparable to the more complex and relatively costly monostatic LIDAR techniques currently available.