Patent ID: 6854344

Claim:
An aerosol sample detection system comprising: a sample collector removably attachable to a vehicle and comprising: a housing having an interior; a plurality of passages formed in the housing and configured to simultaneously provide multiple flows of aerosol sample into the interior thereof from ambient; and, a sample plate removably mounted in the interior of the housing downstream of the plurality of passages and having a sample surface, which is juxtaposed with the plurality of passages, the sample plate and the plurality of passages being displaceable relative to one another so that multiple concentric tracks of collection spots of the aerosol sample are formed on the sample surface upon impacting the multiple flows of the aerosol sample thereagainst; and a multi-channel time of flight (TOF) mass analyzer provided with multiple channels and configured to receive the sample plate, wherein when the sample plate is removed from the sample collector and loaded into the mass analyzer, the multiple concentric tracks on the sample surface each are indexed through a respective one of multiple channels of the TOF mass analyzer.