Atmospheric Transmission Laser Measurement System (ATLMS) for ground-based atmospheric measurements in 0.2-14 ?m

This SBIR Phase I proposal proposes to develop an advanced Atmospheric Transmission Laser Measurement System (ATLMS) for accurate and reliable ground-to-air atmospheric transmission measurements within the spectral range from 0.2 to 14 ?m under diverse atmospheric conditions. The ATLMS consists of a ground station having and airborne platform. The ground station contains widely tunable laser sources, beam pointing and maintaining mechanism, range finder, and radiometer while the airborne is equipped with passive reflectors. The ground-based tunable laser source emits a wavelength tunable beam towards the airborne platform. Upon intersection with this reflector, the laser beam returns back to the ground station where it is detected by a fast radiometer to yield the atmosphere transmission spectrum across the entire interested spectral bands. With technology, an airborne platform can be easily chosen because it does not have to carry heavy equipment such as blackbody and/or spectrometer for collecting/calibrating the atmospheric transmission spectrum data. During Phase I, a thorough investigation into both the ground station and airborne platform will be conducted to discern the optimal choice that seamlessly integrates with the ATLMS while ensuring efficacy and reliability in atmospheric measurements. Various aspects, such as stability, payload capacity, altitude capabilities, and endurance, will be analyzed to guarantee that the chosen platform can proficiently host the retroreflectors and maintain a stable position during measurements, with a preliminary design reaching TRL 3.  The Phase II is to develop and validate the ATLMS prototype of TRL 6 or higher.