The mini lidar (light detection and ranging) system operated on board the FAAM BAe-146 aircraft is an ALS450 manufactured by Leosphere. It has an emitted wavelength of 354.7 nm and a receiver bandwith of 0.36 nm. It is operated on the BAe-146 in nadir viewing geometry enabling mapping of cloud and aerosol layers, retrieval of aerosol optical properties and cloud top heights.

The lidar measures cloud top height, range corrected signal, relative depolarisation ratio, and with additional processing aerosol extinction coefficient, aerosol backscatter coefficient and aerosol optical depth