WHAT WAVELENGTH IS THE AEROSOL LIDAR ? WHY THIS WAVELENGTH?
The UV 355 nm has been chosen because it allows to emit with an energy 1000 times higher than at 532 nm with the same constraint of eyesafety. The beam is invisible, the wavelength is also highly sensitive for Rayleigh scattering, it sees the extra small particles (50nm), and it is more efficient for Raman detection (Nitrogen and H2O water vapor), with a scattering efficiency 10 times better than in 532 nm.


CAN THE LIDAR BE PLACED ON A SHIP OR ON AN AIRCRAFT?
Yes, thanks to its compacity the EZ Lidar can easily be put on a light aircraft, on a light boat and a ship. In order to obtain the same results than on the ground, the are two solutions to put the Lidar in a mobile configurations:
- To put it on a mobile plate that conserve the horizontality anytime
- To record the rolling and pitching data (inertial central) during the measurements so that the user can post correct the Lidar data with the aiming angle.


CAN YOUR LIDAR BE USED FOR DAYTIME OBSERVATIONS? WHAT DETECTION (PHOTON COUNTING OR ANALOG) ARE USED?
Of course our EZ Lidar can be used for daytime observations, and I want to point out that compared to some micro joules Lidar systems, the EZ Lidar has a much better efficiency. Indeed, with or without photon counting channel our Lidar can be used with almost the same performances during day or night. Leosphere’s engineers managed to solve this daytime observation problem by applying a multiple-step filtering method which reduces the background signal down to a few percents. As a result, EASY LIDAR provides data of almost the same accuracy during daytime and night time.
This point is very important because daytime observation allows the user the follow the PBL diurnal evolution and other parameter continuously, it also allows to couple the Lidar with a photometer.


CAN I GET THE MASS CONCENTRATION OF THE AEROSOL?
Yes, thanks to nephelometers or in situ instruments, we can know the specificities of reflection and absorption of the local particle volume. Coupled to the Lidar extinction data, there is a scientific relation that has been proved, which allows to get the mass concentration. If you need further information please contact Laurent Sauvage: lsauvage@leosphere.fr


WHAT PARAMETERS DOES THE SOFTWARE PROVIDE?
We do provide both processed and raw data.
The sequence that our software performs in quasi real time is the following:

From the raw signal, we compute a range corrected signal showing the structures of aerosol and clouds. Then we calibrate the signal against a molecular reference found in a clear sky area (without any cloud nor aerosols). We eventually retrieve individual profiles for raw data, range corrected data (PR2), extinction, optical depth, cloud & BL height. It can also display the temporal evolution of PR2 data, cloud & BL and extinction against height.