Preliminary Observations from Robot-Enabled Surface Methane Concentration Monitoring at a MSW Landfill

Abstract

The use of robots for surface methane concentration (SMC) monitoring at municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills has the potential to improve quality of data acquisition for fugitive methane measurement over current practices. Methane concentrations vary significantly, both spatially and temporally, across a MSW landfill. However, current monitoring methods do not necessarily account for these significant spatial variations. A land-based robot coupled with commercially-available, relatively low-cost methane detection technology for SMC monitoring was field tested at an active MSW landfill. To more effectively monitor fugitive methane emissions at MSW landfills, an automatic, low-cost, field-deployable technique is needed to actively monitor methane concentrations. Three test areas within a landfill were selected; SMC surveys were performed both manually and by land-robot using the Landtec TDL-500, a tunable diode laser methane detector. The preliminary field observations indicate that a robotic platform can significantly improve quality in data acquisition for surface methane concentrations at MSW landfills; this paper also discusses the limitations of land-based robots for site-wide methane emission monitoring.