Scott Nicholas
Japan’s meteorological agency has unveiled a detailed picture of clouds taken by a Harris-developed imager technology onboard the country’s newest weather satellite over Japan and the Pacific Ocean.
Harris said Monday it designed the Advanced Himawari Imager to increase the accuracy, speed and accuracy of information the Mitsubishi Electric-built Himawari-9 satellite delivers to Japanese meteorologists with the aid of the satellite’s 11 additional spectral bands and updated rapid scan capacity.
AHI uses similar technologies used on the Advanced Baseline Imager onboard the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 that works to provide data to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Eric Webster, vice president and general manager of Harris’ environmental solutions business, said a similar Himawari-8 imager has helped predict the paths of various typhoons in the Pacific Ocean.
Webster added the technology also works to help airlines distinguish smoke, sand, dust and volcanic ash that might interfere with flight operations.
