Sigma Space’s Micro Pulse LiDAR (MPL) was installed at Bariloche airport in Argentina on January 30th at the request of the Argentinean Ministry of Defense. Since the June 2011 eruption of the Chilean Puyehue, Bariloche has been suffering from intermittent ash clouds blowing from the volcano, and the airport in Bariloche has been closed much of the time since the eruption. Sigma Space’s rugged, portable, and highly automated MPL system enabled fast installation.
Volcanic ash has been a recurrent impediment to normal air-traffic operations in Europe, Asia and South America over the last few years. There had been no operational tools deployed to assess vertical ash distribution until this pioneering deployment. Sigma’s MPL permits determination of ash concentration profile every few seconds. Read More
