NASA's CASALS instrument bridges gaps in 3D maps of Earth's surface

Researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have developed the Concurrent Artificially-intelligent Spectrometry Lidar System (CASALS), a new instrument designed to eliminate blind spots between lines of lidar data on Earth's surface. Built with support from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), the instrument aims to help researchers map surface features in detail.

According to NASA and NASA Science, current space-based laser instruments measure forests and terrain in narrow lines, leaving gaps that include millions of acres of unmeasured land. CASALS addresses this by blending machine learning with an ultra-compact lidar instrument to adaptively sweep large swaths of the surface, allowing for the creation of three-dimensional topographical renderings.

Phys.org reports that rather than using moving mirrors to mechanically steer a laser, CASALS steers light using wavelength to generate a continuous 3D swath of the ground. A flight of the instrument over the Great Cypress Swamp in Delaware on Nov. 12, 2024, showed tree canopy tops in green, the ground in purple, and near-ground vegetation in blue.

Brief written by urgent.news from Phys.org, NASA, NASA Science — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.