Remote sensing of oil on sea: Lidar and passive IR experiments

A compact system for detecting and monitoring oil pollution on the sea from light aircraft using passive infrared remote sensing was developed. Lidar marine environment and pollution monitoring potential was assessed in the laboratory. The low-power airborne system is suitable for day and night operations in quite good weather. It performs a real time detection of the oil, a mapping of the spill, and an identification of its thickest parts. A suitable Lidar system can be composed by an XeCl excimer laser with small dimensions, a low energy consumption, and 50 mJ energy per pulse. The detection system does not require an optical multichannel analyzer, but it is possible to operate with only three interferential filters: one for Raman scattering signal, the others for fluorescence signals, which are sufficient to identify the oil class.