The present disclosure provides an autonomous biomonitoring system in lotic ecosystems, such as streams. A central design concept of autonomy is capturing aquatic organisms from their natural habitat and entraining them through an analyzer with an imaging unit. The system provides a collector for a sampling aqueous mixture that can flow through a screen to a sediment trap that is coupled to a pump that discharges the aqueous mixture into a staging tank. The staging tank is coupled to a flow-through analyzer and can continuously buffer and control the volume of aqueous mixture flow through the analyzer, and then the aqueous mixture is discharged. In at least one embodiment, the system allows continuous monitoring over a period of time. The system can transmit real time data to a remote location for data accumulation. The system can further provide remote movement of the collector for sampling at multiple remote locations.

A system for analyzing soil content of a field includes a data acquisition unit configured to detect gamma spectra of each of a plurality of soil samples, wherein a surface area of the field is divided into a plurality of portions and the plurality of soil samples comprises at least one soil sample from each of the plurality of portions, a navigation unit configured to detect geographic coordinates of each of the plurality of soil samples, a data analysis unit configured to associate the detected gamma spectra of each of the plurality of soil samples with the geographic coordinates of the soil sample and determine a weight percent of at least one element within each of the soil samples based on the detected gamma spectra, and an element content map unit configured to generate a map indicating concentration of the at least one element within the soil of the field.

An unmanned aerial vehicle detector includes an unmanned aerial vehicle, a pump/detector combination on the unmanned aerial vehicle and a tube including a rigid section and a flexible section. The tube is connected at a proximal end to the pump/detector combination. The pump/detector combination is configured to draw gas samples from a distal end of the tube to the detector and to detect a level of a gas drawn from within a prescribed distance above ground level.

Provided herein are methods and devices that allow for efficient management of many different sampling locations within a facility. A method for operating a biological sampler, a particle counter, and like air sampling, analysis, and/or monitoring equipment or instrumentation is described, such as by sampling an environment at a sampling position with the biological sampler and storing sample data and other useful information in memory in association with unique identifier(s) including sampling location(s) for the samples. Also provided are associated devices for carrying out the methods.

The present invention includes an apparatus and method for detecting the location of one or more sources of one or more target molecule, the apparatus comprising: a molecule detector; and a processor connected to the molecule detector and to a global position system, wherein the processor calculates the presence of the one or more target molecules, runs a computer code that determines a dynamic reverse gas stack model for the one or more target molecules, and triangulates the possible position for a source or effluent of the one or more target molecules based on the dynamic reverse gas stack model. The determined reverse gas stack model may have a Gaussian dispersion over one or more sampled locations.

A removably attachable sampling and analysis apparatus for use with a drone which includes a housing member, a flotation member, at least two connecting members, a collapsible framework and sensors. A preferred embodiment of the present invention enables rapid deployment of the sampling and analysis apparatus to multiple target locations on a body of water to take water quality measurements and samples. The sampling and analysis apparatus can also be utilized in other applications such as soil measurements and sample collection, agricultural and forestry applications, as well as with gas sensors to measure air quality and map values in 3D space with a time stamp.

The disclosed invention is a new concept for a network of specialized continuous ambient air sampling systems, which employ a novel non-destructive ionization and separation method, coupled to a near real-time genomic sequencer. The network of preferably pathogen samplers, would constitute a plurality of distributed nodes throughout the world, with bacterial & viral concentration, identification, and mutation data uploaded to the cloud for epidemic/pandemic predictive modeling. The proposed system offers the ability to migrate from outbreak surveillance, to outbreak forecast. In addition, the capability for continuous data of genomic sequencing offers an enhanced capability to help track antigenic drift and antigenic shift. While optimized for viral capture and analysis, any airborne pathogen or spore can be accepted using the technology. Applications include world health monitoring, pandemic prediction, and detection of real-time bioterror pathogen deployment.

A portable communication device includes one or more miniature sensors to sense one or more environmental gases. A processor is coupled to the miniature sensors and is configured to enhance location detection by determining a sensor signal transition. The sensor signal transition is caused by subsequent exposures of at least one of the miniature sensors to environmental gases of a first air composition and a second air composition. The first air composition and the second air composition are respectively associated with a first location and a second location.

Embodiments are described of a sensing network including one or more sensor nodes, wherein each of the one or more sensor nodes includes a gas sensor that can measure the presence, concentration, or both, of one or more airborne pollutants in a nodal coverage area surrounding the sensor node. A sensor base that can measure the presence, concentration, or both, of one or more airborne pollutants is positioned in the nodal coverage area of each of the one or more sensor nodes, wherein the sensor base includes a gas sensor with higher accuracy, higher sensitivity, or both, than the gas sensors of the one or more sensor nodes. One or more servers communicatively coupled to the sensor base and the one or more sensors nodes. The sensor base and the sensor nodes can communicate their measurements to the server and the measurements of the sensor base are used by the server as a reference to correct the measurements of the one or more sensor nodes.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for detecting seepage of hydrocarbons in subterranean zones. In one aspect, a method includes detecting hydrocarbon seepage at multiple different sampling depths from a surface in a surveyed geographic region, comparing each of the hydrocarbon seepage at the multiple different sampling depths, wherein hydrocarbon seepage at a reference depth is known, and determining hydrocarbon seepage through the surveyed geographic region based on a result of the comparison.