Apparatus and method for remotely detecting the presence of chemical warfare nerve agents in an air-released thermal cloud

摘要

An apparatus and method for remotely detecting the presence of chemical warfare nerve agents in a suspect thermal cloud. Infrared radiation emitted by a suspect thermal cloud is analyzed by means of a forward looking infrared thermal imager equipped with a spectral filter wheel having four passband filters; three of the spectral filter elements are spectrally optimized to respond to infrared radiation emissions characteristic of chemical warfare nerve agents. The variations in image contrasts of the thermograms generated by selectively filtering the infrared radiation emitted by the suspect thermal cloud are compared to determine the presence or absence of chemical warfare nerve agents in the suspect thermal cloud.