The ship exhaust sniffing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system can be applied to monitor vessel emissions in emission control areas (ECAs) to improve the efficiency of maritime law enforcement and reduce ship pollution. To solve the problems of large size, heavy weight and high cost of ship exhaust sniffing sensors, in this paper, a unique diffused mini-sniffing sensor was designed, which provides a low-cost, lightweight, and highly adaptable solution for ship exhaust sniffing UAV. To verify the measurement accuracy of the system, a large number of on-site tests were performed based in the mouth of the Yangtze River, and some cases of violation of the fuel sulfur content (FSC) were verified and punished. Maritime law enforcement officers boarded the ship to take oil samples from eight suspected ships and sent them to the laboratory for testing. The results showed that the FSCs of the eight ships in chemical inspection were all greater than the regulatory limit 0.5% (m/m) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The system enables authorities to monitor emissions using rotary UAVs equipped with diffused mini-sniffing sensors to measure the FSC of navigating ships, which couple hardware and operational software with a dedicated lab service to produce highly reliable measurement results. The system offers an effective tool for screening vessel compliance.
Air pollutants emitted by ships are one of the major causes of global environmental and human health problems, especially for sulfur oxides (SO2). In this study, a mini-sniffing sensor was mounted on the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to monitor the concentration relationship between CO2 and SO2 in the exhaust gas of sailing ships, then the sulfur content of the ship’s fuel oil was estimated to evaluate the compliance of the fuel sulfur content (FSC) with IMO regulations. In the experiment, the measurement results of the exhaust gas of sailing ships in the Pearl River Delta were presented, the data set from February to April 2022 was provided, and 445 ships were comprehensively analyzed from the perspectives of ship length and ship type. From the experimental results, considering the error of the sensor, the compliance rate of the FSC of sailing ships entering and leaving the Pearl River reached 93.7%. To some extent, the current situation for meeting the 0.5% (m/m) limit is basically optimistic. The results represent the effectiveness of DECA policy implementation. This paper demonstrates the effectiveness and reliability of the UAV monitoring method in monitoring emissions from ships, and in more effectively monitoring the impact of shipping on air quality. Furthermore, an accurate and non-contact monitoring method is proposed, which can allow law enforcement officers to judge in advance whether the ships sailing is suspected of illegally using high-sulfur fuels. It can improve the efficiency of law enforcement and reduce the cost of supervision.
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