10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Development and Field-Testing of Two Aerosol Instruments on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Osku Kemppinen, Ryan Mersmann, Matthew Berg, Gavin McMeeking, TIM GORDON, Handix Scientific
Abstract Number: 1493 Working Group: Instrumentation
Abstract We describe the design of two UAV-deployable aerosol instruments. The first is a mature, commercially available instrument, the Portable Optical Particle Spectrometer (POPS), from Handix Scientific LLC. The POPS is the first lower-cost instrument capable of accurately counting particles 0.15-3 micrometers in size. The POPS measures scattered light from single particles and infers particle size from scattered light intensity. The second instrument is the Holographic Aerosol Particle Imager (HAPI), which is currently in development by Kansas State University. The HAPI characterizes aerosol particle size and shape for particles larger than 5 micrometers using a novel imaging technique. In the HAPI the interference pattern between the incident and particle-scattered light is measured on a CCD sensor; this constitutes a digital hologram of a particle. The hologram is then computationally processed to render a silhouette-like image of the particle. Thus, the instrument functions as a contact-free lensless microscope, except the precise location of the particle is not required to be known, as images can be computationally focused post hoc.
Both the POPS and HAPI are lightweight and require minimal power, making them ideal for field-deployment on UAV platforms. We will present the first results of POPS flight tests, reporting how propeller wash, vibration, and other flight-related issues affect measurements compared to a reference POPS located on the ground. We will also discuss the possibility of deploying the POPS and HAPI instruments together to enable particle characterization across the sub- to super-micrometer particle size range on a single UAV.