Advanced instruments for field deployment with laboratory capabilities

In the summer of 2022 AirPhoton merged with GRASP-SAS, forming GRASP-Earth. GRASP-SAS has developed a data platform which is used to create aerosol, cloud and surface property data products for satellite sensors. It is widely used by several space agencies in Europe and operational product for missions such as Sentinel-4, CO2M or 3MI. Our goal for GRASP-Earth is to push the boundaries of instrument capabilities by integrating space and ground observations along with models to advance our monitoring and understanding of Earth’s atmosphere. We use GRASP with our in-situ optical instruments to allow us to maximize their information content and to create advanced products.

We are using GRASP in innovative new ways to synergistically combine data from various instruments to create data products which go beyond current offerings. These include: In-situ instruments with satellite data; satellite data from multiple platforms; and data from different types of in-situ instruments. Our instruments have unique features that our competitors do not offer and which you will see on the following section. If you have a question or a suggestion for an application or a new instrument please reach out. Innovation is a collaborative process that is enriched by many minds.

PI Neph+GRASP synergy for a better instrument’s understanding

The PI-Neph (Polarized Imaging Nephelometer) is an innovative instrument developed by AirPhoton team. It features a wide field-of-view camera within a closed chamber to detect scattered light from aerosol particles. This multi-wavelength nephelometer provides accurate measurements of the P11 (phase function) and -P12/P11 (polarized phase function) from ambient aerosol particles at wavelengths of 405nm, 515nm, and 660nm, spanning an angular range of 5-175 degrees with high angular resolution (1 degree). Advanced observations from the PI-Neph have been integrated into the GRASP algorithm for:

Synthetic tests on typical aerosol models, including dust, oceanic, urban, and biomass burning aerosols, with the option to introduce random noise into the measurements. The synthetic tests enable clients and scientists to explore the potential and capabilities of the measurements.

Real measurements collected at ground stations, such as the University of Granada in Spain, during various pollution episodes including dust and biomass burning events.

The results have demonstrated the great capability of the PI-Neph/GRASP to retrieve aerosol microphysical properties with high accuracy—such as aerosol size distribution, complex refractive index, and sphericity—while achieving good fit with the measurements with low retrieval residuals.

Nephelometers Flyer