The Leica ALS40 has the widest field of view (75 degrees) and highest altitude (6100 m above ground) capability of any LIDAR system available and is the first commercially available LIDAR system whose range and intensity settings can be altered midflight, on a flightline by flightline basis. "We listened to our customers and built the most intuitive and accurate system for the working environment," stated Doug Flint, Director, LIDAR, Leica Geosystems. Flint continued, "With the ALS40's flexibility to switch modes midflight, users stand to save a tremendous amount of storage and processing costs by collecting exactly the level of detail necessary for each flightline."
For customers who cover rugged and/or densely featured terrain, the ALS40's 38-50 kHz pulse rates offer higher forest canopy penetration, a more precise set of data and the ability to determine the sizes and locations of smaller objects on the ground. Providing up to 3 amplitudes and 3 ranges with AGC gain digitized, the ALS40 exceeds the dynamic range of systems that do not use AGC by almost 4 additional bits, for data collection at a greater variety of flying heights. Complementing the RC30 aerial film camera and ADS40 Airborne Digital Sensor, the ALS40 offers Leica Geosystems customers a third technology for cost-effective airborne data acquisition.