NASA sensor takes wait out of emissions tests

In St. Louis, Missouri, vehicles are tested using dated, inefficient technology

By Environmental News Network staff

No lines. No wasted lunch hour. The daily commute to work may soon be all it takes to pass the annual automobile emissions test.

As cars and trucks accelerate up freeway on-ramps, they will pass through a low-powered light beam that analyzes vehicle exhaust. A camera will snap a picture of the vehicle's license plate.

Owners of vehicles that pass through the beam and camera twice a year and are deemed clean will get a notice in the mail that essentially exempts them from a wasted lunch hour.

Dirty vehicles will still have to report to the test center and repair shop.

The emissions measuring system is being developed at the Tucson, Arizona, offices of SPX Corporation. The units, projected to cost $250,000, will be ready for market in 2001.

The gut of the system is patented NASA remote sensing technology originally designed to monitor greenhouse gases and Earth's protective ozone layer. SPX and NASA confirmed a licensing agreement July 18.

As vehicles pass through a low-powered light beam that analyzes vehicle exhaust, a camera will snap a picture of the vehicle's license plate

The concept is not new; a system is already in place in St. Louis, Missouri. However, such systems are inefficient and use technology that dates back to the late 1980s.

"SPX partnered with NASA to come up with better technology for today's cars," said Craig Rendahl, the remote sensing business director at SPX.

The new system works by bouncing an infrared light beam off a mirror located across the road from the box. The molecules in the car exhaust absorb the light in various spectra of the infrared.

The sensor receives the altered light and is able to determine the concentration of various gases in the exhaust and whether the vehicle is in compliance with federal air-quality standards.

"It is like each gas has its own fingerprint that a device inside (the system) is comparing with fingerprints on file," said Glen Sachse, a scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The body of the system is mobile so that a municipality could buy one unit and move it to various locations around town, thereby reaching most vehicle owners on the road and not at a testing center.

Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

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