Aerial remote sensing of hazardous CBE agents by means of an UAV-aided laser based standoff detection system

Kurzfassung

Within the last decades the global architecture of security has fundamentally changed. Terrorist attacks and attempted attacks showed that preventive measures and immediate countermeasures are important for protecting critical infrastructures and humans. A fast reconnaissance can prevent human contact to hazardous materials from intended and accidental output from CBE hazardous materials. That is why a fast, flexible and reliable remote detection of CBE traces and contaminations is a crucial aspect for an improved security. LUCS (Laser based UAV classification system) is an innovated, drone-based remote detection system developed by the DLR Institute of Technical Physics. Based on a laser-spectroscopic technique, this system is specially designed for contactless remote-recognition of hazardous chemical agents on surfaces without any human contact with a detection rate of up to 1 kHz at a working distance between 5 – 15 m. The compact sensor is mounted on a commercial UAV and is well integrated into the UAVs power supply and control unit. Due to a maximal take-off weight of 15kg the systems belongs to class C3 and can easily be used by government agencies and organizations with security tasks. Within the context of the 2nd SICC Conference we present first experimental results acquired during our field tests of the LUCS system on the DLR test range. These measurements confirm the feasibility of a sensitive airborne CE standoff detection system, which is capable to classify released substances in real time to prompt for appropriate countermeasure.