In Situ Sampling of Volcanic Emissions with a UAV Sensorweb: Progress and Plans

Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 8964)

Abstract

A consortium of NASA, commercial, and academic partners, we have begun utilize small UAVs and aerostats for in situ sampling of volcanogenic gases and aerosols, using Turrialba Volcano as natural laboratory. Significant progress has been made over the last several years in utilizing single platforms with a number of newly miniaturized instruments appropriate to aircraft with sub-500 gm payloads. For example, we have been mapping the SO2-water-vapor plume at Turrialba, for comparison with NASA spacecraft-based (e.g., ASTER) data, and are measuring diffuse CO2 emissions over the volcano’s flanks, as well as in and near its eruption column. Future work will include devising strategies, platforms, and instrumentation for deployments of multiple UAV formations (“swarms”) as 2D and 3D time-series meshes, to better characterize the mass fluxes and dynamics of emissions. We plan to undertake test flights in the United States, as well as at Turrialba and Poas Volcanoes in Costa Rica. Our most immediate aims are to improve characterizations of local emissions for mitigation of proximal volcanic hazards and for validation of abundance retrievals and transport models based on orbital data. Overall, of course, we strive to better understand how volcanoes work, specifically to better constrain estimates of global SO2 and CO2 perennial (diffuse) and event-related (eruptive) emissions—changes in which may foster regional and global climate perturbations.

Keywords

Unmanned aircraft UAVs Volcanoes SO2 CO2 Diffuse emissions 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

This work was carried out, in part, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology under contract to the NASA Earth Surface and Interior Focus Area and the ASTER Project. We also gratefully acknowledge the continued support of Matt Fladeland and his Airborne Science team at NASA ARC (Randy Berthold, Don Herlth, Corey Ippolito, Matt Johnson, Rick Kolyer, Bruce Storms, Mark Sumich), Geoff Bland and Ted Miles at NASA GSFC/WFF, Justin Linick and Vince Realmuto at JPL, Gary Hunter and Paul Greenberg at NASA GRC, Darby Makel (Makel Engineering), Steve Fuerstenau (Radmet LLC), Jack Elston (BlackSwift Engineering), as well as the UCR CICANUM GasLab Team (Alfredo Alan, Oscar Alegria, Sara Azofiefa, Ernesto Corrales, and Yetty Madrigal). We would also like to thank our colleagues Lance Christensen and Florian Schwandner at JPL for helpful technical advice and encouragement.

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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of TechnologyPasadenaUSA
  2. 2.GasLab of the Center for Investigations in Atomic, Nuclear, and Molecular Sciences (CICANUM)University of Costa RicaSanjoseCosta Rica

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