The Long-baseline Optical Anemometer (LOA™) measures path averaged crosswind and turbulence over distances of 100 meters to over 10 km.
OSi's Optical Wind and Vortex sensor (OWV) is a breakthrough in measuring turbulence, large body air/wind movement over a long path (50 to 300 meters or more) - all in a single, low cost sensor.
There are many advantages to utilizing LOA technology as a tool for tracking movements of large bodies of air, hazardous wind movements and atmospheric turbulence. LOA technology has been extensively tested as part of NASA's Airspace Systems Program to help airports detect the effects of a wake vortex on or near ground level.
LOA was developed in the 1970's by ERL/NOAA, and has proven useful in a number of diverse applications including monitoring pollution drift from Denver to Greeley Colorado, monitoring airflow velocity of HF gases from aluminum smelting operations, which has received EPA method 14 approval) as well as tracking the movement of noxious odor from a large scale hog Farm.
The preliminary data indicates that when LOA is combined with other open path gas sensors it provides more accurate tools to regulatory bodies to monitor and regulate large source emissions.
Using two or more LOA's can provide a large area 2-deminsional wind vectors that no other sensors could possibly measure. Adding three of more sensors to form a closed contour, provides not only 2-demensional wind vectors but it can measure the total emissions from the site in real time.
