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 Micro Pulse Lidar

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Micro Pulse Lidar System 

Micro Pulse Lidar (MPL) system NASA offers companies the opportunity to license this novel lidar system.

Developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, this innovative Micro Pulse Lidar (MPL) system provides autonomous monitoring of atmospheric variables such as cloud base height, cloud profile, and aerosol structure. Improved technology makes the MPL system an eye-safe, reliable, small, sensitive, and efficient detection device for use in several commercial applications.



Benefits

  • Eye safe:  Uses low-energy laser pulses with high repetition rates

  • Reliable:  Has been proven to operate autonomously and continuously for 2 years in turnkey installations

  • Small:  Fits in a 40 x 40 x 20 cm space

  • Sensitive:  Detects and measures low-concentration phenomena accurately

  • Inexpensive:  Uses commercially available components

  • Flexible:  Is operational in daytime and nighttime conditions

  • Comprehensive:  Detects all significant aerosol and thin cirrus clouds

  • Long range: Detects and measures clouds and aerosol structures at high altitudes, up to 30 km




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Applications

  • Atmospheric research
  • Meteorological monitoring
  • Environmental monitoring
  • Airport slant range visibility





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Technology Details

Lidar is much like radar, but it operates with light wavelengths rather than radio waves. Light’s very short wavelength gives measurements sensitive to the smallest atmospheric particles, and lidar therefore can readily see aerosol, such as dust and pollution, and clouds. MPL makes lidar practical for routine uses.

Graph showing measurements in height by day of the year on 12/14/1997.

MPL systems autonomously monitor atmospheric clouds and aerosol scattering. Unlike previous, traditional lidar systems—which are not eye-safe; require constant supervision during operations; and are large, complex, costly, and unreliable—MPL is an eye-safe, small, simple, reliable, long-range lidar system that operates unattended and is significantly enhancing atmospheric research.

MPL instruments are being used in atmospheric and climate studies. MPL gives a full time distribution for cloud and aerosol layer heights, linking cloud heating and transport to winds. MPL was used in the discovery the “Atmospheric Brown Cloud”—a 2-mile-thick layer of aerosol and other particles that (as reported by CNN) “is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths [in Asia] per year from respiratory disease… [and] altered the region’s climate, cooling the ground while heating the atmosphere.”

The technology now is being used in a worldwide network of MPL systems, which is acquiring long-term data sets to validate and help improve global and regional climate models.

The MPL system has been patented (U.S. Patent 5,241,315 -Link opens new browser window.) and is currently in use in research applications. Science and Engineering Services, Inc., currently holds a nonexclusive license for the MPL system and manufactures it for research applications.


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Licensing and Partnering Opportunities

For information and forms related to the technology licensing and partnering process, please visit the Licensing and Partnering page. (Link opens new browser window.)


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For More Information

If you are interested in more information or want to pursue transfer of this technology, please contact:

Innovative Partnerships Program Office
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Phone: (301) 286-2642
E-mail: techtransfer@gsfc.nasa.gov






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