Spectroscopic Analysis Systems
Fluid / Fluid Contamination
Contamination of fuel by engine oils is a significant cost to the Air Force when these contamination events occur. One notable difficulty faced by flight line crews is identification and evaluation of fuel condition during these contamination events. FTL’s “FFC” (fluid / fluid contamination) detection system evaluates fuel on-site using UV-Vis-FTIR spectrometry, coupled with a sophisticated machine learning algorithm to quantify extent of contamination.
Spectrometry is a powerful tool for analyzing known contaminants, but aircraft fuels and fluids have variations of both fuel/fluid base stock and additive formulations that lead to instability of spectral fingerprints.
FTL’s FFC overcomes this with wavelet-based spectrum analysis and AI-based classification software that classifies each contaminant’s spectral fingerprint in terms of prior data, becoming more intelligent as it encounters more real-world variation. FFC is portable, automatic, and quantifies hydraulic oil contamination accurately to 100 ppm.
WHAM Drinking and Wastewater Analysis Module
WHAM (Weighted Heuristic Analyzer Monitor) is a lightweight, cross-platform expert system for assessment of candidate water sources based on public regulations. Using no reagents or destructive methods, it executes sensor measurements in real-time and analyzes those measurements in parallel to provide instantaneous sample assessment. One of the “sensors” in particular includes FTL’s custom spectroscopy analysis software, which employs a machine learning algorithm to classify water condition automatically based on clarity standards which traditionally have required a technician to evaluate them.
Modular and flexible in its design, WHAM can be configured to interface with a wide variety of sensors and apply different sets of regulations based on context and need, using semantic computing algorithms to track, sort, and evaluate data based on a regulatory database. WHAM has been integrated with electrochemical sensors, particulate sensors, and spectrometers, and is versatile and scalable. WHAM has been used to characterize numerous water samples, including deionized water as well as local (Amherst, Massachusetts, USA) tap and pond water.