Identification

Title

Unpiloted aircraft system instrument for the rapid collection of whole air samples and measurements for environmental monitoring and air quality studies

Abstract

A new airborne system, the Whole Air Sampling Pilotless Platform (WASPP), is described for the collection of whole air samples and in situ meteorological measurements onboard a commercial hexacopter. Rapid sample collection enables the collection ≤15 air samples per flight in positively pressurized miniature canisters, subsequently analyzed on a mated analytical system for up to 80 nonmethane volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The WASPP is well suited to investigate VOC gradients in urban environments impacted by traffic, industry, and oil and natural gas (O&NG) development, but has the sensitivity to characterize continental background conditions, as shown here using a subset of >40 species. We document empirical tests to minimize the influence of rotor wash and other sampling artifacts and report favorable results of laboratory-based calibrations of the WASPP's meteorological sensors and field-based comparisons of WASPP's VOC measurements and horizontal wind velocity measurements. Airborne WASPP measurements can complement and enhance ground-based VOC monitoring efforts by providing substantial meteorological and VOC measurement capability across vertical and horizontal spatial scales. These measurements reveal strong vertical gradients in VOC mixing ratios, depending on local meteorology and sources. WASPP has wide applicability for pollution source identification and quantification of hazardous air pollutants and precursors of criteria pollutants, including monitoring O&NG emissions or industry fenceline monitoring.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7fn19kf

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-04-21T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact