Validation of a small flying e-nose system for air pollutants control: A plume detection case study from an agricultural machine

The interest in using small electrochemical sensors, also known as e-noses, with unmanned aerial vehicles is growing fast. While there are already some attempts to combine these two technologies, there is also evidence that the state-of-the-art is not mature enough, and there are still many research questions to answer. A novel small flying e-nose system configuration is proposed for detecting NO2 and other hazardous chemical compounds outdoors. The small flying e-nose system is composed of a DJI Matrix 100 and a set of AlphaSense electrochemical sensors. The main contribution of this work is the experimental validation of the system for detecting the NO2 plume coming from agricultural machinery. Evaluation and verification tests were conducted in a 100 m2 area, over 10 flight hours, during two days, and under different environment conditions.