Michigan Aerospace Corporation is an advanced engineering and products company. Among its products are Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) instruments for ground, sea, air and space, including applications in the wind energy industry.

Michigan Aerospace was awarded the GroundWinds Project—an initiative funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to demonstrate direct detection fringe imaging Doppler wind LIDAR technology.

The challenge was to integrate LIDAR technology in a ground-based control center that would be easy to use by operators, even to the extent of being run from remote locations in the event of bad weather. The control center had to be both safe and secure.