Gas leaks can be hard to spot. Methane escapes undetected from fracking sites and contributes to atmospheric warming. Toxic fumes spew from improperly disposed waste. Natural disasters upset critical infrastructure, creating invisible hazards to residents and rescue workers.

Now, a Princeton team has developed a comprehensive, agile way to locate and identify gas leaks using drones, advanced lasers, and mathematical models of how gases disperse in the atmosphere.

While existing monitoring systems are typically ground-based and tuned to one or a few chemicals at a time, the new technology can detect dozens of chemicals simultaneously, creating a 3D map of all the gas plumes in an area.

“We can really fingerprint where the sources are,” said Mark Zondlo, professor of civil and environmental engineering. That fingerprinting gives monitors more effective intervention tools and deeper insight into root causes.

Led by Gerard Wysocki, professor of electrical and computer engineering, the team includes Zondlo; Elie Bou-Zeid, professor of civil and environmental engineering; and Jaime Fernández Fisac, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. They’ve recently partnered with ThorLabs, an optical equipment company, to commercialize this technology under the name ChemScanAir.

“ChemScanAir is going to be the complete package that can be deployed very quickly after disasters,” Bou-Zeid said, “so that we can minimize the leakage of air pollutants and hazardous chemicals in the environment.”