Micro Pulse LiDAR

The Micro Pulse LiDAR (MPL) is an elastic backscatter LiDAR designed for long-term, autonomous aerosol and cloud monitoring. Pulses of energy are transmitted into the atmosphere; the energy scattered back to the transceiver is collected and measured as a time-resolved signal, thereby detecting clouds and aerosols in real time. MPL data can be used for measurement of cloud boundaries, calculating cloud phase and depolarizing aerosols, cloud scattering cross sections and optical thicknesses, planetary boundary layer heights and aerosol extinction and optical thickness profiles, including those into the stratosphere in night-time cases. MPL and MiniMPL are the only LiDARs simultaneously approved for NASA MPLNET, US Dept of Energy ARM program, and EUMETNET.