SAFETRANS: a system for 3D visibility estimation and cloud cover detection

The estimation of visibility is of significant importance in aviation safety and forms part of the measurements rou-tinely collected in real time to provide safety guidelines and decisions. Our work concerns the creation and imple-mentation of a lidar-based visibility estimation system as part of the SAFETRANS research program. We created a reproducible system to (1) support standard airport equipment, (2) serve simultaneously as a visibility meter and a ceilometer reporting on cloud cover, (3) offer increased accuracy and improved capabilities compared to standard-ized equipment currently in use while (4) requiring minimal user training to function. This work presents the vis-ibility estimation and cloud cover algorithms and subsequently reports on results of field tests in a number of Greek airports under various atmospheric conditions.& COPY; 2023 Optica Publishing Group