Rod has an MSc in Astronomical Technology from Edinburgh University and a BSc in Astronomy and Astrophysics from the University of Newcastle.
He designed and built the data acquisition and analysis systems for the NPL DIAL facility; and has taken part in over 25 monitoring campaigns with the DIAL facility, at refineries, coking plants, petroleum products storage and handling facilities and landfill sites.
Rod is pioneering work to measure diffuse greenhouse gas emissions and he is the first to apply the DIAL technique to measuring carbon dioxide emissions from industrial facilities. Rod is part of the Management Team of the Carbon Measurement Centre at NPL.
Rod is an international authority on industrial emissions measurements and is on the Management Board of the UK's Source Testing Association. He has previously been the Quality Officer and Chairman. He consults for the UK Environment Agency in this context, and has been invited to give a keynote presentation at the last four annual conferences of the US Source Evaluation Agency.
Rod also has wide experience of instrument development projects and is highly regarded as a gas measurement specialist. He developed breath alcohol test equipment to simulate human breath samples for the type approval of evidential breath analysers to UK Home Office test specifications.
Current interests
Rod has over 20 years' experience with NPL, covering all aspects of environmental monitoring. He is technically responsible for all NPL contracts on remote environmental sensing and is recognised as a leading international authority on the practical application of DIAL. Rod works with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the EPA's National Optical Sensing Workgroup, and he has been instrumental in obtaining EPA approval for the DIAL technique in the USA and has led eight long DIAL campaigns in the US and Canada since 2007.
Email Rod Robinson