The most recent and technologically advanced instrument and computing package for CAO is called AToMS, or Airborne Taxonomic Mapping System.
AToMS has three integrated sensing technologies: (i) High Fidelity Visible-Shortwave Infrared (VSWIR) Imaging Spectrometer; (ii) Dual-laser, waveform Light Detection and Ranging (wLiDAR) Scanner, and (iii) High-resolution Visible-to-Near Infrared (VNIR) Imaging Spectrometer.
AToMS is now in its third generation configuration, with advances in all sensors. It can map features on the Earth’s surface in three dimensions, including all terrestrial ecosystems and the human-built environment. AToMS can also image coral reefs and other aquatic habitats with spectral detail.
The Beta System operated from 2007-2009, providing spectral imaging through the Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) and three-dimensional imaging through a Carnegie single-laser Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) Scanner. The CAO Beta System was a research test-bed for the current AToMS airborne sensor package. The Beta System operated in California and Hawaii.
The Alpha System operated from 2006-2011, and consisted of a Visible-to-Near Infrared (VNIR) Imaging Spectrometer and waveform Light Detection and Ranging (wLiDAR) Scanner. The Alpha System made major contributions to ecological science and conservation studies in California, Colombia, Hawaii, Madagascar, Panama, Perú, and South Africa.
From The New York Times, Newsweek, The Guardian and Huffington Post, through Scientific American, Nature, National Geographic and Mongabay, to Wired, USA Today, The Economist and much more, Carnegie Airborne Observatory has been featured in leading newspapers and media all over the world.
Even before the plane left the runway, it was clear the crew of researchers examining the fallout from California’s historic drought would not return with good news.
Limahuli Valley, Kauai
July 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of a scientific idea hatched in a distant valley along Kauai Island’s northern coast in the central Pacific. The 2006 conception was preceded by ten other years of research on the chemical properties of plant canopies in far flung environments ranging from desert shrublands to tropical rainforests. That preceding decade had cumulatively yielded just a hint that a tree-of-life approach to studying forests might be possible at the mother of all scales – Earth’s biosphere.
KOTA KINABALU: A mapping campaign using scientifically advanced technology took off on April 4 this year in Sabah to gather data that will feed into making the best decisions for land use and management of the state’s biodiversity.
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