Remote thermal detection

We're getting closer. A fist size LIDAR for $250 thanks to the push for self driving cars.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...s_2&set=602506

Cheers,
7Q

Can LIDAR detect the small changes in air density due to a thermal?

Motion of particles in the air

Awesome I can't wait!!

On Friday, September 30, 2016 at 6:21:27 AM UTC-5, Tony wrote:
Awesome I can't wait!!

Here comes the end of this world as we know it.

We might as well all just stop flying and start playing Condor. Maybe then we could interest our youth? It's way too hard to soar the way we do it now and making it easier will bring soaring back to the level of popularity we use to enjoy? Or maybe we should remove ourselves from the cockpit and fly remotely?

Boggs

On Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 10:50:59 PM UTC-7, Craig Funston wrote:
Motion of particles in the air

Not saying you are wrong, but what lidar unit can detect particles in the air? And from the CEO “I can see what you’re doing with your fingers at 100 meters,� is a statement with obvious intentions to decieve and confuse. "Seeing" is not a word I would associate with lidar, particularly real time. And a 30 hz lidar unit (did they mean 30 khz on their website?) "see's" nothing. Lidar gives you dots in space and their relative relation to each other and the lidar source, then those dots need to be interpreted to give the needed information. Maybe they are doing amazing interpretation, hard to tell from the website. But a 30 hz (or even a 30 khz) lidar gives very, very few data points, particularly from a moving car. So the system is interpreting something from that data to give information of some type, but this is nothing like seeing or vision as we would typically think of it. But it sounds good.
Not to be confused, the self driving car is on it's way and will dramatically change transportation, but that's not really a lidar issue.
And, more to the point of the thread, seeing thermals would change the sport, but would it lessen the fun in any way?

On Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 10:50:59 PM UTC-7, Craig Funston wrote:
Motion of particles in the air

Oh, there is some capability in this regard, pollution, smoke, etc. Interesting, but probably not coming to glider cockpit any time soon

I personally think if we could actually see what the air is doing, we would quit flying. Makes a Class 5 river run look benign.

On Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 7:01:38 PM UTC-4, Craig Funston wrote:
We're getting closer. A fist size LIDAR for $250...

Craig - There are lots of small low-cost Lidar units, but they are
for relatively short-range detection of a solid. I've played with
a hockey-puck size unit in an indoor-mapping application.
But, these are nNot long-range particle motion as already demonstrated
for remote thermal detection ;-)

See ya, Dave