Spark-excited fluorescence sensor

A spark-excited fluorescence sensor (10) is provided which enables monitoring of various gas species (14), such as H2, COx, NOx, N2, NHx and hydrocarbons added to a system as source fuels and/or additive agents, or discharged from a system as exhaust including pollutants, for more efficient use of fuels for optimizing performance of the system, and, also, for reducing pollutants in the atmosphere. The spark-excited fluorescence sensor of the invention comprises a spark plug (12) to excite molecules of the gaseous species, an optical fiber window (18) and an optical fiber bundle (20) to collect and transmit, respectively, the fluorescence, bandpass filters ( 24 ) to select predetermined wavelengths corresponding to the gases to be detected, detectors (26), and signal processor (28 ) . The output from the signal processor is then used to improve overall performance of the system.