Air quality data collected by small, unmanned aircraft over industries in South Africa

During 2004 several air pollution studies have been conducted over industries in various parts of South Africa. This data has traditionally been collected using Rockwell Aerocommander 690A twin turboprop aircraft. Given the cost of operation of these aircraft, small unmanned aircraft have been developed to supplement the data collected from the full size platforms. This has proven to be a cost effective method of collecting temperature, humidity, pressure, ozone and aerosol data. This paper will show some of the data collected during these projects, and hopefully illustrate how high quality data sets can be gathered very economically.