New automated lidar system and multimedia virtual laboratory

We are developing a new remote-operational lidar system, with multimedia technology. This system reduces the necessity to go to the remote place. The system is located in Rikubetsu (43.3N, 143.5E), in north portion of Japan, which is a famous place for a fair weather all the year round. We use SHG of Nd:YAG laser and receive P, S components of Mie back scatter with photon counter. All necessary controling of instruments such as the roof of the housing, tilt mirror, laser, photon counters, oscilloscope, and so on, are done by personal computers. Operator uses a web browser from a remote site to operate the lidar system, with monitoring the weather and the total state of the system. There is another workstation which runs a newly developed desktop video conference system. With these system, several persons can simultaneously observe and watch the data, discuss with each other. We can now observe the aerosols more frequently than ever. This will let us to get precise information about the aerosols in north regions of Japan.© (2001) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.