Patent — available for licensing
Wide Field Receiver Calibration Device for Micro Pulse LiDAR
A NASA invention available to explore as a licensing opportunity.
About this technology
Overview
Micro Pulse LiDAR (MPL) instruments – first developed in the early 1990s by a NASA scientist – are compact, eye-safe elastic-backscatter LiDARs deployable at remote locations. A federated ground network of MPLs compose the NASA MPL Network (MPLNET), which provides continuous aerosol and cloud profiling data around the globe. However, using MPLs – especially for aerosol research – in the near range (0-6 km) requires a time consuming, laborious overlap calibration process to quantify and correct the region where the emitted laser beam and detector field of view do not fully overlap. At close ranges, this overlap is often incomplete, leading to reduced signal accuracy. Accurate characterization and correction of this function are vital for precise data, especially for near-surface atmospheric features. In response to this challenge, engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center developed the Wide Field Receiver (WFR) Calibration Device for MPLs. This auxiliary receiver has a broad field of view compared to the standard MPL receiver, allowing it to capture more scattered light from the atmosphere, including regions where the standard receiver’s overlap is complete. By comparing data from both standard and this NASA wide field of view receiver, users can accurately determine the overlap function and apply necessary corrections to MPL data, all with reduced time and effort relative to conventional techniques.