Encapsulation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standoff chemical detection requirements for commercial sensor system developers

Abstract

This paper is a collaborative effort between the US EPA's Technology Applications and Research & Development groups to generate commercial interest in the development of cost effective sensors appropriate for the requirements of organizations in the CIVIL sector chartered with providing emergency first response support. The US EPA Region-7 Technology Applications Group maintains the Airborne Spectral Photometric Environmental Collection Technology (ASPECT) System. This system provides the US EPA with operational 24 hour I seven days a week emergency response remote chemical detection capability. Data collected by the ASPECT system along with first responder requirements will be encapsulated in a manner suitable for guiding the efforts of commercial sensor system manufactures (e.g. , effluents of interest, bounding concentrations/abundances, bounding environmental background parameters, sensor radiometric performance requirements for high-confidence response/action, operational readiness timelines, etc.). This paper is intended to provide the requirements, initiate and guide the synthesis process for sensor(s) and instrument packages providing sufficient area coverage, spectral resolution, and sensitivity to detect, selectivity to identify, image, and map hazardous chemical plumes. It is believed this effort will facilitate cost effective and timely state of the art sensor/system technology development suitable for CIVIL emergency response needs in compact automated packages.

A portable vapor cell for passive FT-IR spectrometer evaluation

“…20 This spectrometer when equipped with a Newtonian telescope having a 10 inch entrance aperture was used previously for a number of airborne IR measurements. 11 For the laboratory measurements in this study, the telescope was removed. The aperture wheel from the FT-IR spectrometer collimator was placed at the completely open "mm" setting.…”