Construction of an LED sensored sunphotometer and measurement of the atmospheric optical thickness

• Main Author: Robles, Ian Mark A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2001
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/1796
• Institution: De La Salle University

An LED (Light Emitting Diode) sensored Sunphotometer was successfully constructed and operated. The Sunphotometer is a device which determines the optical thickness of the atmosphere and of aerosols by measuring the intensity of the sunlight reaching the detector. Six LEDs were used as detectors in the constructed Sunphotometer. These LEDs also serve as the bandpass filters of the device. An LF411 operational amplifier boosted the signal output generated by the LEDs. Data are collected with the use of the Boxcar Averagers' Computer Interface Module (Model SR245) and controlled by the Data Acquisition Module. The Data Acquisition Module is a part of the software developed in this study called SpDASys. Once data has been acquired, the Data Processing Module of SpDASys computes for the different atmospheric parameters. Plots and tab-delimited files were generated for storage. Information derived from the Sunphotometer measurements can be used either to correlate measurements obtained with other platforms (such as with the LIDAR system) or provide boundary values to these platforms.