10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Applications of Unmanned Aerial Systems in Atmospheric Environment Monitoring
ZHONG-REN PENG, Xiaobin Li, Dongsheng Wang, Bai Li, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Abstract Number: 1737 Working Group: Remote/Regional Atmospheric Aerosol
Abstract In recent years, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and miniaturized sensors have been widely used to obtain atmospheric parameters within the lower troposphere. UAS platforms equipped with miniaturized sensors are capable of obtaining both vertical and horizontal distributions of air pollutants, which can be used in many aspects of the environmental science, such as air pollution forecasts and citizen exposure estimation. To explore potential utilization of the UAS platforms as much as possible, we have developed many types of UAS platforms (including fixed-wing and rotor-wing UAS) and used in many field experiments.
The measurement accuracy of UAS platforms under harsh operation environments of upper air was evaluated and calibrated with similar observation of a large tethered balloon platform that was equipped with standard air quality monitors. Results show that the UAS platforms were capable of accurately capturing both horizontal and vertical variations of air pollutants.
The fixed-wing UAS platforms were used to make observations of air pollutants (e.g. O3 and PM2.5) at three-dimensional scales within the 1000 m lower troposphere. Results show that observations of the fixed-wing UAS platforms can clearly demonstrate both vertical and horizontal variations of air pollutants, which can be used to analyze transport characteristics of air pollutants over the experimental area. The rotor-ring UAS platforms were also used to obtain vertical profiles of atmospheric parameters (e.g. O3, PM2.5, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction) within the range of 0-1500 m. Observations of the rotor-ring UAS were capable of clearly demonstrating temporal variation patterns of atmospheric parameters, which helped analyze potential causes of air pollution events. Furthermore, the UAS platform was used to calibrate numerical models to obtain more accurate air pollution predictions.