Airborne remote sensing of chemical vapors in an urban environment

The US Army has developed the Airborne Chemical Imaging System (ACIS), a research platform used to evaluate passive infrared (IR) standoff detectors for airborne remote sensing of chemical vapors. It consists of a sensor suite configured in a gyro-stabilized optical sensor platform, which is mounted on a UH-1 (Huey) helicopter. Two developmental IR imaging sensors are used in the ACIS: a high-speed Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer, and a high-resolution tunable IR Fabry-Perot spectroradiometer. The ACIS was used in the Joint Urban Experiments in Okalahoma City in July 2003. It participated in several trials and acquired a number of meaningful data sets. The paper discusses the ACIS remote sensing data results and shows how it relates to some of the ground truth data.