Development of a Compact Instrumentation Package for Characterization of Aerosols, Turbulence and Surface Characteristics in the Arctic from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase IIB project addresses the need for new widespread datasets to help reduce uncertainties in current predictions of climate change and to improve our understanding of the health impacts of air pollutants. The continued development and commercialization of new compact instruments for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will include modules to measure aerosol size distributions, total aerosol number concentration, black carbon concentrations, ambient winds and turbulence, and a chemical sampler to acquire filter samples for off-line analysis. A digital camera module will allow surface characterization during UAV flights. A coupled electrical-mobility and light-scattering-based aerosol number size distribution measurement system will provide rapid airborne observations over the 0.01 to 10 micrometer diameter range. A condensation particle counter that has already operated on-board UAVs will serve as the small particle detector. The optical particle sizer development will focus on completing the prototype and functional testing. Prototypes of other instruments completed during Phase II will be tested under various environmental conditions simulating UAV environments. The mobility classifier and optical particle counter will be tested against reference methods using traceable calibration particles. Prototypes of the turbulence and imaging systems will be constructed and tested a wind tunnel. During the Phase IIB project, build, test and quality assurance procedures will be developed so each device can be efficiently manufactured. Life cycle testing will be performed to identify design improvements that increase reliability. The overall development project will build upon eight years of existing UAV instrument development, in particular the deployment of aerosol instruments (particle counter, light absorption and filter-based chemical composition measurements) on-board a UAV over the Arctic in 2011 and 2015. The new technology will help mitigate measurement limitations in applications that include creation of new and expanded data sets for climate change and urban air quality models, aerosol health effects studies, flux measurements of aerosol species from ocean and land surfaces, studies of rapid aerosol evolution in power-plant plumes, and indoor air quality monitoring for green buildings, industry and households.