Patent ID: 8269170

Claim:
A system for remotely detecting at least one constituent of a gas, comprising: a spectrally sensitive receiver positioned at a receiver location, said receiver including an optical component defining a field of view; an alignment mechanism coupled to the receiver and operable to change the field of view of the receiver by changing the direction in which the receiver is pointed; wherein the receiver is operable, via the alignment mechanism, to be sequentially pointed at each of a plurality of extended sources of broadband infrared radiation such that the sources are within the field of view of the receiver for discrete periods of time sufficient to collect Fourier Transform spectral infrared absorption data representative of gas present between the source at which the receiver is pointed and the receiver, the sources being separated from one another and separated from the receiver location; and further comprising means for comparing the Fourier Transform infrared absorption data representative of the gas to known gas infrared absorption information to determine the identity of the gas.