Arthur Molina Carrilo¹, Eduardo Landulfo¹, Nilson Dias Vieira Junior¹, Gessé Eduardo Calvo Nogueira¹, José Tort Vidal¹, Jorge Cláudio Rafaelli², Nilson Luis Neres²

¹Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, São Paulo, Brazil
²Instituto de Astronomia , Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil

The objective of this work is automating the LIDAR system using the labview software. The labview is software to build a virtual interface to control the instrument. This software uses the block programming based on JAVA/Perl that allows the virtual interfacing of the instrument. One of the qualities of this software is that it allows the publishing of the virtual interface through the internet, allowing remote sensing of the instrument. The LIDAR system is composed by a laser, a Newtonian telescope, a data acquisition system and finally a rolling roof. The laser is the Nd-YAG with wavelength equal to 532 nm, which pulse frequency equals 20 Hz and the value of the charge its 40 mj. The acquisition system is composed by a Transient recorder. The telescope used is a Newtonian (30 cm diameter). The “rolling roof” protects the system against damage caused by the rain. The roofs opening and closing will be authorized by the functioning of the temperature and humidity sensors that will indicate the imminence of rain and third sensor that reacts to the contact with water will guarantee the presence or lack of precipitation. However, control via software will only be possible with instruments that allow remote sensing, that is, through local or external networks. Operation of the instrument involves three elements. Those are: functioning of the laser, acquisition and data publishing. The functioning of the laser includes the operation of the laser and rolling roof. At this moment the laser control software has been concluded, it has gauges for certain parameters (pulses emitted by the light bulb, pulse frequency, laser emissor temperature, etc) charge controllers of the emitted pulse and of activation/deactivation of the laser font and a webcam that shows images of the laser. Concerning the rolling roof, the controlling software has not yet been built and is one of the coming projects. The data acquisition is controlled through Ethernet cables with TCP/IP protocol. Development of the controlling software is done and that allows the visualization of some parameters, like attenuation signal, and the control of others, like data range time. Despite its conclusion, the software is still going through an optimization process. Publishing of the data does not involve the control of any instrument. However, the software that processes the raw acquisition data and translates them into a result that is published as a diagram has been developed in labview, allowing the visualization of the results. An ongoing project consists in creating a virtual course on meteorology based on the results found by the LIDAR system. For that, will be used the MOODLE middleware. MOODLE is an acronym for “Modular Object whatever”. This middleware is written in PHP and allows that a professor teaches a course online. There are a large number of tools available in MOODLE. They range from customization of the course’s structure to elements of teacher/student interaction. That allows the teacher to create a course with the functionality of a presence based courses. One of the advantages of teaching a course via MOODLE is the dynamism that the course can have. This dynamism can be reached by creating chat rooms, forums and videoconferences or even the publishing of links for other sites or environments. Finally, the intention is to make the operation of the LIDAR system completely virtual and create a virtual course based on LIDAR results and utilizing the instrument for laboratorial activities.