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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 757 records · Page 42
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

A visible to near-infrared nanocrystalline organic photodetector with ultrafast photoresponse

Organic photoelectron conversion devices, due to their solution process and wide use in portable devices, have attracted intensive interest. In this work, a newly developed active layer of D18:Y6 is used to fabricate an organic photodetector and the device of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/D18:Y6/Phen-NaDPO/Ag shows a responsivity of 680 mA W –1 and a detectivity of 6.35 × 10 13 Jones (1 Jones = 1 cm Hz 1/2 W –1 ) at a wavelength of 850 nm. Additionally, this device shows a wide linear dynamic range of 120 dB, indicating a potential near-infrared region (NIR) detector system. Owing to the minimal exciton binding energy of 37.6 meV for Y6, a desirable energy offset for efficient electron–hole pair dissociation and an ultrafast charge transfer of ~58 ps at the interface of D18:Y6, the obtained organic photodetector has demonstrated a photoresponse time as fast as 1.8 μs upon laser light excitation without an external driven voltage. More importantly, D18 shows a preferred out-of-plane orientation with strong intensities and Y6 exhibits a preferred orientation along the in-plane direction on lamellar stacking, which facilitates charge transport. This work has demonstrated significant progress in exploring D18:Y6 NIR organic devices with a wide photosensitivity linearity and ultrafast photoresponse.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

Development of a compact fast-neutron spectrometer for nuclear emergency response applications

We have developed a Compact Fast Neutron Spectrometer (CFNS) for passive assay of special nuclear material (SNM) through the observation of fast neutrons. The CFNS consists of eight organic glass scintillators (OGS) coupled to silicon photomultipliers and a waveform digitizer, which are integrated within a human-portable box. The CFNS determines the neutron energy profile by spectrum unfolding using the Maximum-Likelihood Expectation Maximization method. The detector acquisition system was optimized to have a dynamic range of up to 10 MeV neutron energy. Bulk special nuclear material (SNM) measurements from the National Criticality Experiments Research Center were analyzed for SNM validation/examination. Additionally, the results show that the CFNS can be used to distinguish between fission and (α, n) neutron emitters, regardless of intervening material type (Cu and polyethylene) and thickness, by taking the ratio of neutron counts at different regions in the unfolded energy spectrum. Additionally, by fitting an exponential curve to the unfolded energy spectrum of PuO 2 and Pu neutron emitters, the CFNS showed the ability of distinguishing between pure Pu oxide, pure Pu metal and mixed oxide-metal configurations.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Entrainment and aerosol effects on marine boundary-layer clouds: An investigation using ACE-ENA data from HOLODEC, G1, Pico and ACTOS (Final Report on Project Activities)

Marine boundary-layer clouds cover large regions of the globe and are known to strongly influence radiative balances. The microphysical properties and persistence of these clouds are tightly coupled with cloud-top entrainment and aerosol properties within both the boundary layer and the overlying free troposphere. This work addressed the microphysical response to entrainment and aerosol properties in marine stratocumulus clouds, using data from the Aerosol and Cloud Experiments in the Eastern North Atlantic (ACE-ENA) project. Specifically, emphasis was placed on 1. extensive in situ measurements taken with the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) G1 aircraft using the Holographic Detector for Clouds (Holodec) instrument; 2. airborne measurements obtained with the helicopter-borne Airborne Cloud Turbulence Observation System (ACTOS) operated by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) during the first phase of ACE-ENA; and 3. above-boundary-layer, mountain-top measurements taken at the Pico Mountain Observatory (OMP) by the research group of the co-investigator and scientists from TROPOS during the first phase of ACE-ENA. The work is aligned with the topic “Warm Boundary-Layer Atmospheric Processes.” Key results include the following. Data from the Holographic Detector for Clouds (Holodec) were reprocessed, refined, and validated through a careful instrument intercomparison, resulting in a high-quality dataset available on the ARM archive for ACE-ENA. High-resolution ACTOS measurements of thermodynamics, microphysical, and turbulence properties were analyzed to explore the behavior of the entrainment velocity at cloud top. Analysis of the vertical variability of cloud droplet size distribution shape suggests that mixing is more inhomogeneous near cloud top, and more homogeneous deeper into the cloud. Analysis of aerosol measurements from OMP explored the mixing state and cloud condensation nucleus properties, as well as the implications for radiative forcing. Finally, a machine learning algorithm was developed for identifying characteristic cloud droplet size distributions, and was employed to explore microphysical regimes in stratocumulus clouds observed during ACE-ENA. The characteristic size distributions are narrow, and only when spatially averaged do they produce the broad “gamma” distributions typically assumed in models. This implies that precipitation development should account for variability and correlations in the distribution shape as well as the number concentration of cloud droplets.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Novel Instrumentation for Advanced Quantum Chromodynamics Studies with Flavor Sensitivity

The true nature of ordinary matter has always fascinated humankind, whose imagination has been pointed to the right direction since the 5th century BC with the first known atomic theory by Leucippus and Democritus. They described the matter as formed by small, invisible, indivisible, and eternal particles: the atoms. A long investigation followed them, including contributions from several of history?s greatest philosophers and scientists. The progress led to the understanding that atoms have an internal structure consisting of a central nucleus composed of protons and neutrons, surrounded by a cloud of electrons. About 50 years ago, scientists discovered that nucleons also have an internal structure. Through the Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) experiments, on which a lepton is scattered off a nucleon, it was possible to access the distribution of partons inside the nucleon along the longitudinal direction defined by the hard-scale probe. It was a crucial step in developing Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), currently the best theory describing the subatomic matter. Ultimately, DIS was recognized as a limited tool to investigate the nucleon structure because it is mainly sensitive to observables at the probe?s energy scale. In recent decades, theoretical developments have allowed defining soft-scale observables by measuring more complex processes. Reactions such as Semi-Inclusive Deep Inelastic Scattering (SIDIS) with single or di-hadron production, can provide information about the momentum of parton inside the nucleon. In particular, polarized SIDIS allows access to the Transverse-Momentum-Dependent (TMD) parton distributions describing the correlations of the quark and gluon degrees of freedom in transverse momentum and spin. This study can provide three-dimensional imaging of nucleon structure and inner dynamics, as long as the hadronic component in the final state can be measured. Identifying the species of the produced particles provides information on the quark flavor and assumes a crucial role in this context. The thesis describes the work carried out by the author in preparing novel instrumentation for particle identification in the final state of DIS experiments, to support modern analysis of the parton dynamics within the basic confined object (nucleon) with flavor sensitivity. The work has been focused on the CLAS12 spectrometer in operation at Jefferson Laboratory (JLab), Newport News, VA, USA, and the ePIC experiment in preparation for the future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Long Island, NY, USA. CLAS12 is a fixed-target experiment using a 12 GeV beam of polarized electrons scattering off polarized nuclear targets. In 2018 and 2022, two Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detector modules were installed to improve the ?±/K± separation in the high-momentum region (3÷8 GeV/c) of the experiment. The author contributed to the assembly, installation, and com- missioning of the second RICH module, to the efficiency studies of the first module, and to the first SIDIS analysis with high-momentum kaons identified by the RICH. These studies led to the observation of the first spin asymmetry with high-momentum kaons from the CLAS12 experiment, and an initial assessment of the systematic error associated with the hadron identification. ePIC will be the first experiment at the future EIC, the new collider designed to expand the frontiers of QCD. The author was involved in the development of the dual-radiator Ring Imaging Cherenkov (dRICH). This detector will interpolate the measurements of the Cherenkov angles of photons produced by relativistic particles crossing two different radiators to identify charged hadrons. The author contributed to the studies conducted with the dRICH prototype, developing the reconstruction and analysis software and simulations, characterizing the aerogel radiator samples, and being responsible for the tracking system used during the beam tests. The performance obtained by the prototype has been progressively improved and the results are now comparable with the expectation derived from the simulation and satisfy the requirements of the experiment. In Chapter 1, the SIDIS theory is briefly introduced, outlying the connection with the experimental measurement. Chapter 2 includes the description of the CLAS12 RICH, its assembly and installation, and the efficiency study. In Chapter 3, the analysis of the Beam-Spin Asymmetry associated with SIDIS kaons is described. Chapter 4 describes the contribution to the dRICH for EIC, starting from a description of the ePIC experiment and focusing on the studies performed for the dRICH prototype. The conclusions of this work are summarized at the end.

Vallarino, Simone↗
DOE OSTI2022

Optical Characterization of OMT-Coupled TES Bolometers for LiteBIRD

Feedhorn- and orthomode transducer- (OMT) coupled transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers have been designed and micro-fabricated to meet the optical specifications of the LiteBIRD high frequency telescope (HFT) focal plane. Here, we discuss the design and optical characterization of two LiteBIRD HFT detector types: dual-polarization, dual-frequency-band pixels with 195/280 GHz and 235/337 GHz band centers. Results show well-matched passbands between orthogonal polarization channels and frequency centers within 3% of the design values. The optical efficiency of each frequency channel is conservatively reported to be within the range 0.64–0.72, determined from the response to a cryogenic, temperature-controlled thermal source. These values are in good agreement with expectations and either exceed or are within 10% of the values used in the LiteBIRD sensitivity forecast. Lastly, we report a measurement of loss in Nb/SiN x /Nb microstrip at 100 mK and over the frequency range 200–350 GHz, which is comparable to values previously reported in the literature.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Airborne Measurements of Scale‐Dependent Latent Heat Flux Impacted by Water Vapor and Vertical Velocity Over Heterogeneous Land Surfaces During the CHEESEHEAD19 Campaign

Abstract The water vapor transport associated with latent heat flux (LE) in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) is critical for the atmospheric hydrological cycle, radiation balance, and cloud formation. The spatiotemporal variability of LE and water vapor mixing ratio ( r v ) are poorly understood due to the scale‐dependent and nonlinear atmospheric transport responses to land surface heterogeneity. Here, airborne in situ measurements with the wavelet technique are utilized to investigate scale‐dependent relationships among LE, vertical velocity ( w ) variance (), and r v variance () over a heterogeneous surface during the Chequamegon Heterogeneous Ecosystem Energy‐balance Study Enabled by a High‐density Extensive Array of Detectors 2019 (CHEESEHEAD19) field campaign. Our findings reveal distinct scale distributions of LE, , and at 100 m height, with a majority scale range of 120 m–4 km in LE, 32 m–2 km in , and 200 m–8 km in . The scales are classified into three scale ranges, the turbulent scale (8–200 m), large‐eddy scale (200 m–2 km), and mesoscale (2–8 km) to evaluate scale‐resolved LE contributed by and . The large‐eddy scale in PBL contributes over 70% of the monthly mean total LE with equal parts (50%) of contributions from and . The monthly temporal variations mainly come from the first two major contributing classified scales in LE, , and . These results confirm the dominant role of the large‐eddy scale in the PBL in the vertical moisture transport from the surface to the PBL, while the mesoscale is shown to contribute an additional ∼20%. This analysis complements published scale‐dependent LE variations, which lack detailed scale‐dependent vertical velocity and moisture information.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Performance of the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter prototype to charged pion beams of 20–300 GeV/c

The upgrade of the CMS experiment for the high luminosity operation of the LHC comprises the replacement of the current endcap calorimeter by a high granularity sampling calorimeter (HGCAL). The electromagnetic section of the HGCAL is based on silicon sensors interspersed between lead and copper (or copper tungsten) absorbers. The hadronic section uses layers of stainless steel as an absorbing medium and silicon sensors as an active medium in the regions of high radiation exposure, and scintillator tiles directly read out by silicon photomultipliers in the remaining regions. As part of the development of the detector and its readout electronic components, a section of a silicon-based HGCAL prototype detector along with a section of the CALICE AHCAL prototype was exposed to muons, electrons and charged pions in beam test experiments at the H2 beamline at the CERN SPS in October 2018. The AHCAL uses the same technology as foreseen for the HGCAL but with much finer longitudinal segmentation. The performance of the calorimeters in terms of energy response and resolution, longitudinal and transverse shower profiles is studied using negatively charged pions, and is compared to GEANT4 predictions. This is the first report summarizing results of hadronic showers measured by the HGCAL prototype using beam test data.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

w19_nubhlight (Final Report)

The in-spiral and merger of two neutron stars produces several signals observable on Earth. The in-spiral of two compact objects produces gravitational waves - ripples in spacetime - detectable by the LIGO and VIRGO detectors. The two stars will tidally disrupt each other, throwing off material, some of which escapes and some of which forms a disk of hot nuclear matter accreting onto the central remnant. This accretion drives a pair of powerful ultra-relativistic jets of material along the polar axis. These jets are ultimately responsible for producing short gamma-ray bursts, some of the most brilliant and energetic events in the cosmos.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

A flexible test facility for liquid xenon detector development

As liquid xenon time projection chambers scale to ever-larger sizes, so too do the engineering challenges they pose. Here, we describe a large, flexible, multipurpose test facility capable of supporting the development of a number of key aspects of liquid xenon detector systems. Example applications of this facility include characterization of large-area light and charge sensor arrays, tests of xenon purification techniques and materials compatibility, and investigations into high-voltage phenomena. This facility uses an automated and remotely monitored cryo-cooling system based on immersion of the test chamber in a liquid bath rather than conductive coupling, leading to advantages in temperature and pressure stability, as well as increasing required response times in the case of cooling-power loss. Design advantages, operational procedures, and performance of the facility are described, as well as five examples of liquid xenon test chambers that use the facility.

Dark Matter detectors↗
DOE OSTI2025

Enantioselective Se lattices for stable chiroptoelectronic processing media

Chiroptoelectronic devices are crucial for applications in quantum computing, spin optical communications, and magnetic recording. However, the limited efficiency and low stability of conventional circularly polarized light (CPL)-sensing materials have restricted their broader use. Here, we introduce atomic chiral Se nanorod (NRs) films as broadband CPL detectors, leveraging the intrinsic chirality and stability of Se nanocrystals. We also perform incident circular polarization (ICP)-Raman optical activity (ROA) to explore the chiroptical activity of the large-area films. The Se NRs thin films detected CPL across a broad range from ultraviolet (UV) to short-wavelength infrared (SWIR), with a responsivity dissymmetry factor of up to 0.4, maintaining high stability under ambient conditions for longer than 13 months. CPL-sensitive Se NRs with intrinsic chirality have potential applications in chiral photonic synapses, chiral spin devices, and CPL-sensitive photocatalysts. ICP-ROA mapping also advances the analysis of 2D chiral materials.

Nanophotonics and plasmonics↗
DOE OSTI2021

Characterisation of signal-induced noise in Hamamatsu R11265 Multianode Photomultiplier Tubes

Signal-induced noise is observed in Hamamatsu R11265 Multianode Photomultiplier Tubes, manifesting up to several microseconds after the single photoelectron response signal and localised in specific anodes. The mean number of noise pulses varies between devices, and shows significant dependence on the applied high-voltage. The characterisation of this noise and the mitigation strategies to perform optimal single-photon counting at 40 MHz, as required by the LHCb Ring-Imaging Cherenkov detectors, are reported.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Active control of Alfvén eigenmodes by external magnetic perturbations with different spatial spectra

Alfvén eigenmodes have been suppressed and excited in tokamak plasmas by (just) modifying the poloidal spectra of externally applied static magnetic perturbations. This effect is observed experimentally when toroidal spectra of n = 2, n = 4 as well as a mixed spectrum of n = 2 and n = 4 is applied. Under the n = 2 magnetic perturbations, the modes are excited or suppressed by modifying the coil phasing between the upper and the lower set of coils. Regardless of the absolute rotation, an even parity for the n = 4 perturbation is observed to reduce the amplitude of the Alfvénic instabilities, while an odd parity amplifies it. To combine the stabilizing (and destabilizing) effect of n = 2 and n = 4, a mixed spectrum is applied, finding similar reduction (and amplification) trends. However, the impact on the mode amplitude is more subtle, due to the reduced coil current required for a mixed spectrum. The signal level on the fast-ion loss detector is sensitive to the applied poloidal spectrum, which is consistent with Hamiltonian full-orbit modelling of an edge resonant transport layer activated by the 3D perturbative fields. An internal redistribution of the fast-ion population is induced, modifying the phase-space gradients driving the Alfvénic instabilities, and ultimately determining their existence. The calculated edge resonant layers for both n = 2 and n = 4 toroidal spectra are consistent with the observed suppressed and excited phases. Moreover, hybrid kinetic-magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations reveal that this edge resonant transport layer overlaps in phase-space with the population responsible for the fast-ion drive. The results presented here may help to control fast-ion driven Alfvénic instabilities in future burning plasmas with a significant fusion born alpha particle population.

Alfvén waves↗
DOE OSTI2024

Optically induced quantum transitions in direct probed mesoscopic NbSe 2 for prototypical bolometers

Superconducting transition-edge sensors (TES) have emerged as fascinating devices to detect broadband electromagnetic radiation with low thermal noise. The advent of metallic transition metal dichalcogenides, such as NbSe 2 , has also created an impetus to understand their low-temperature properties, including superconductivity. Interestingly, NbSe 2 -based sensor within the TES framework remains unexplored. In this work, direct-probed superconducting NbSe 2 absorbers led to a proof-of-concept demonstration for the transduction of incoming light to heat, where a thermodynamic superconducting phase transition in NbSe 2 was evident to switch it to the normal-state, when biased below its superconducting transition temperature. A wavelength-dependent response of its optical absorption properties was observed, based on the incident optical excitation source used. Furthermore, extensive optical characterization studies were conducted using Raman spectroscopy, where the in-plane and out-of-plane thermal conductivity was empirically determined. Our results open new possibilities for the use of NbSe 2 in superconducting radiation detectors, including in a TES framework

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

ML-based calibration and control of the GlueX Central Drift Chamber

The GlueX Central Drift Chamber (CDC) in Hall D at Jefferson Lab, used for detecting and tracking charged particles, is calibrated and controlled during data taking using a Gaussian process. The system dynamically adjusts the high voltage applied to the anode wires inside the chamber in response to changing environmental and experimental conditions such that the gain is stabilized. Control policies have been established to manage the CDC's behavior. These policies are activated when the model's uncertainty exceeds a configurable threshold or during human-initiated tests during normal production running. Finally, we demonstrate the system reduces the time detector experts dedicate to calibration of the data offline, leading to a marked decrease in computing resource usage without compromising detector performance.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Microstructural and Micro-Chemical Evolutions in the Irradiated UCO Fuel Kernels of AGR-1 and AGR-2 TRISO Fuel Particles

AGR-1 and AGR-2 TRISO fuel particles were fabricated with slightly different fuel kernel chemical compositions, modified fabrication processes, different fuel kernel diameters, and changed 235U enrichments. To correlate those differences with the fuel kernel responses to neutron irradiations in terms of irradiated fuel microstructure, fission products chemical and physical states, and fission gas bubble evolutions, extensive microstructural and analytical characterizations were conducted. The studies used a state of art transmission electron microscopy (TEM) equipped with Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) of four silicon solid-state detectors which have super sensitivity and fast speed. The TEM specimens were prepared from selected AGR-1 and AGR-2 irradiated fuel kernels exposed to safety testing after irradiation. The particles were chosen to represent a representative irradiation conditions with a fuel burnup within the range from 10.8 to 18.6% FIMA, and the time-average volume-average temperatures vary from 1070 to 1287°C. The 235U enrichment was 19.74 wt.% for the AGR1 fuel kernels and 14.03 wt.% for the AGR-2 fuel kernels. The TEM results show that there were significant microstructural reconstructions in the irradiated fuel kernels for both the AGR-1 and AGR-2 fuels. There are four major phases including fuel matrix of UO2 and UC, U2RuC2, and UMoC2 in the irradiated AGR2 fuel kernel. Zr and Nb form solid solution in the UC phase. UMoC2 phase often shows a detectable concentration of Tc. Pd was found to mainly locate in the buffer layer or to be associated with fission gas bubble within the UMoC2 phase. The EDS maps qualitatively show that the rare-earth fission products (Nb, et al.) preferentially reside in the UO2 phase. In contrast, in the irradiated AGR1 fuel kernel, no U2RuC2 or UMoC2 precipitates were positively identified. Instead, there is a high number of rod-shape precipitates enriched with Ru, Tc, Rh, and Pd observed in the fuel kernel center and edge zone. The difference of microstructural and micro-chemical evolutions in irradiated fuel kernels between the AGR-1 and AGR-2 TRISO fuel particle may result from a combined factor of irradiation temperature, fuel geometry and chemical composition. However, the irradiation temperature probably play a more deterministic role. Limited electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) characterizations on the AGR2 fuel kernel show that there is nearly no carbon in the UO2 phase while a small fraction of oxygen was detected in the UC/UMoC2 phase.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Localized phase contrast imaging at the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator

In its basic form, phase contrast imaging (PCI) provides line-integrated measurements of electron density fluctuations in plasmas. As turbulent fluctuations in magnetically confined plasmas have wave vectors almost perpendicular to the background magnetic field, the signals scattered by fluctuations from different parts of the PCI line-of-sight (LoS) are spatially separated in focal planes of the plasma. This allows localized PCI measurements by placing a mask in such a plane, to only permit signals from specific parts of the LoS to reach the PCI detectors. The present paper describes modeling and design of localization masks for the PCI system at the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator as well as the first results obtained using the masks in the recent long-pulse W7-X experimental campaign. During this project, we have extended the theory describing the mask response within the Fraunhofer diffraction model. As a novel development, we show from first principles that the mask response is determined by the fraction of power of the scattered beam spots that passes the mask. These insights have been used to select the W7-X mask design, consisting of a circular cutout, allowing the unscattered beam spot to pass the mask, with wedges covering a fixed angular range outside the central cutout. In the recent W7-X experimental campaign, the masks have verified the location of the main turbulence features observed by the PCI system and provided new information about the location of short-wavelength magnetohydrodynamic modes.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2022

Neural conditional reweighting

There is a growing use of neural network classifiers as unbinned, high-dimensional (and variable-dimensional) reweighting functions. To date, the focus has been on marginal reweighting, where a subset of features are used for reweighting while all other features are integrated over. There are some situations, though, where it is preferable to condition on auxiliary features instead of marginalizing over them. Here, we introduce neural conditional reweighting, which extends neural marginal reweighting to the conditional case. This approach is particularly relevant in high-energy physics experiments for reweighting detector effects conditioned on particle-level truth information. Furthermore we leverage a custom loss function that not only allows us to achieve neural conditional reweighting through a single training procedure, but also yields sensible interpolation even in the presence of phase space holes. As a specific example, we apply neural conditional reweighting to the energy response of high-energy jets, which could be used to improve the modeling of physics objects in parametrized fast simulation packages.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Toward an AI-Powered Software Pipeline for Real-Time Tracking and Analysis of Wildfire and Smoke

Real-time tracking of wildfires and smoke is crucial for effective response, minimizing damage, protecting lives, and efficiently managing resources during fire emergencies. We develop a web-based AI-powered pipeline that detects wildfires in aerial video and estimates deployment-relevant behavior metrics, including cumulative burned area, burned-area growth rate, fire spread direction, and smoke dispersion. The system combines a YOLO-based detector with YCbCr-based fire segmentation, HSV-based smoke segmentation, Farneback optical flow, and centroid-based spatiotemporal tracking. Using ground sampling distance (GSD), pixel-level fire masks are converted to physical burned-area measurements by correlating fire pixel counts with camera altitude and tilt angle. We benchmark YOLO variants and non-YOLO baselines (GoogLeNet, CNN, DBN, Autoencoder, U-Net, and AlexNet) on the IEEE FLAME dataset and a newly created aerial frame dataset, Wildfire-DB. Cross-dataset evaluation uses a strict threshold-transfer protocol: decision thresholds are selected on FLAME validation and transferred unchanged to Wildfire-DB to quantify generalization under domain shift. YOLOv6 achieves the strongest cross-dataset frame-level fire detection on Wildfire-DB (ROC-AUC 0.8200, PR-AUC 0.8044, and transferred-threshold F1 0.7596). For tracking-oriented deployment requiring oriented localization, YOLO11-OBB provides the most reliable cross-dataset behavior among OBB-capable models while remaining computationally feasible. To analyze the feasibility of UAV deployment, we further measure inference efficiency using synchronized GPU and CPU power logs on a fixed workload of 1569 frames. YOLO-family models process the video in 5.73–12.47 seconds with net energy of 1247.28–1775.39 J, substantially lower latency and energy than heavier classification and reconstruction baselines. Overall, model optimality depends on operational objectives: YOLOv6 is best for cross-dataset detection robustness, whereas YOL...

Color segmentation↗