The project TELEMACO: detection, identification and concentration measurements of hazardous chemical agents

Nowadays, the monitoring of air in the environment is crucial to prevent chemical poisoning and disease onsets. Among the several techniques used to monitor the environment, the Differential Absorption LIDAR (DIAL) method has a very interesting approach. It is a remote technique able to give linear, areal or volumetric information. The range can be very large (more than 2 km) and the response is fast near-real-time. On the other hand, the classical DIAL approach is limited to the measurement of only one chemical and it is affected by the influence of other chemicals, which makes the sensitivity and specificity of the method low. In this work, the authors describe the principal results of the project TELEMACO where the authors developed a multiwavelength-based DIAL demonstrator able to perform the measurement of several hazardous chemicals in the environment and to increase the accuracy of the technique. TELEMACO can scan 66 wavelength lines and, at the moment, it can identify and measure the concentration of 24 chemicals included in the database. This database can be extended with new measurements. The experimental apparatus is described as well as its functioning. Then, the most relevant tests performed to validate the functioning of TELEMACO are shown and discussed. The potentialities and the limits of this promising technology are analysed.