The proposed technology will be applicable to a wide variety of applications for which a spectrometer is needed to characterize or quantify chemicals of interest, but where size and cost are at a premium. NASA missions that may specifically benefit from hybrid LGI infusion include Earth Science and Planetary Exploration. Sample applications within these broader research areas include characterization of sulfur dioxide emissions from volcanoes, monitoring of methane pipelines, remote sensing from UAV platforms or in situ characterization of samples from a rover.
As environmental regulation of emissions increases, the market for compact, low cost chemical sensing technologies similarly increases in order to demonstrate compliance. In addition, natural gas companies require a method to monitor their pipelines to prevent significant losses and to minimize the environmental impact of their operations. A compact, low cost system that could be integrated into a drone platform would effectively address these needs.
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