Characterizing the optical properties of individual aerosol particles In the aerospace environment required to allow performance analysis of optical and infrared systems and optical obscuration counter measures. There exists a need to develop new instrumentation which can automatically and remotely (in-situ) measure and record the total scattering pattern from individual airborne particles of different material and shapes under various natural and man-made atmospheric conditions. Knowledge of physical/optical properties of atmospheric atmospheric aerosols will greatly enhance the capability of modeling atmospheric transmission and predicting performance of optical and infrared systems. The objective of the Phase I efforts are to identify the system requirements, investigate the technical feasibility of the developed concept and design a prototype system including a particle (inlet) sampling system for potential aircraft usage, identify light source, optics and detectors for the system, and a data acquisition system. The proposed approach is to measure the spectral and angular variation of scattered light patterns of individual particles over 4 steradians by employing multiple sources and detectors and a fast response data acquisition system. Phase I results are intended to provide details of system design, hardware identification and theoretical analysis that will direct the implementation of Phase II- the actual construction of the system.
