Mapping the wind

ESA’s Aeolus mission is harnessing lidar to map global wind fields. French company Leosphere is transferring this same technology for ground-based 3D scans of wind fields and atmospheric particles. Compact ‘Windcubes’ placed on the ground can help to select the location and predict the yield of windfarms. Additional uses including climatology and environmental monitoring. An alumnus of ESA’s Noordwijk Business Incubation Centre, Leosphere’s customers include NASA, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing and KNMI, the Netherlands meteorology institute.