ZEPHir, standing for Quantum Cascade Laser-based Air Quality Monitoring VTOL platform, is a project focused on creating a laser-guided Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) platform for overseeing shipping emissions. ZEPHir aims to develop a system that mitigates environmental pollution emanating from the shipping and maritime industry.

The project consists of three primary components:

Pollutant Sensing Layer: This encompasses a spectroscopic gas analyzer which operates on the principles of intermittent Continuous Wave (ICW) facilitated by Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs). It also includes a novel segmented circular multipass cell (SC-MPC) dedicated to measuring pollutants.

Emission Monitoring Platform: This component integrates the sensing and computation aspects of ZEPHir to provide a comprehensive overview of data and facilitate effective visualization of the analytics engine’s output.

VTOL Layer: This component comprises the entire ZEPHir VTOL system, complete with a well-defined flight envelope.