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Emission Measurements of Wildland Fires Using Lightweight Sensors and Samplers on Unmanned Aerial Systems
Citation:
Aurell, J., A. Holder, W. Mitchell, AND B. Gullett. Emission Measurements of Wildland Fires Using Lightweight Sensors and Samplers on Unmanned Aerial Systems. The 16th International Congress on Combustion By-Products and Their Health Effects, Ann Arbor, Michigan, July 10 - 12, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
This poster addresses measurement methods for open area sources of air pollution such as fires. The poster describes the development of two aerial measurement systems including sampling instrumentation. These systems represent significant advances in air pollution monitoring from hard to sample, hazardous sources. This poster would be of interest to states and industries that wish to characterize open area sources of emissions.
Description:
Emission measurement systems making use of miniaturized sensors and samplers have been developed for portable sampling from aerial platforms. Small, shoebox-sized systems called “Kolibri”, weighing 3-4.5 kg, have been deployed on USGS- and NASA-flown unmanned aerial systems (UASs, or “drones”) to characterize plume emissions from open area combustion sources. A 5 m diameter, tethered, helium-filled aerostat (balloon) has been used to loft a larger nstrument system (20+ kg) called the “Flyer” into combustion plumes. Both the Kolibri and Flyer use sensors to measure CO and CO2 and miniature samplers for PM2.5/10, PAHs, VOCs, SVOCs, carbonyls, black/elemental/organic carbon (BC/EC/OC), inorganic halogens, and real time BC. New capabilities are being added including IR cameras, NO/NO2 sensors, and a real time sampler for particle size distributions. Telemetry systems on both the Kolibri and Flyer transmit data to the ground crew to enable flight, battery, and sample monitoring. The Flyer has been used to determine emission factors from a variety of open burning sources including oil burns, waste pile burns, agricultural field burning, prescribed wildland fires, and open burning/open detonation of military ordnance. The Kolibri has been successfully and safely deployed in five campaigns to determine emission.