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Continuous methane detection,
across the whole plant at once.

A mesh of chip-scale optical-phased-array (OPA) laser-lidar nodes rings the plant and shoots beams at one another. Methane in a beam's path absorbs a known infrared line at 1650 nm; each node measures how much, and edge-AI turns hundreds of crossing paths into one continuous answer — is there a leak, which joint, how big.

How the OPA lidar works ↓Open the 3D model
the core idea · OPA lidar

What is an OPA laser-lidar — and why it changes methane monitoring

Most lidars steer their beam with a spinning mirror or a motor. An optical phased array (OPA) steers it with no moving parts at all: an array of tiny waveguides on a photonic chip emits the same laser light, and by shifting the phase of each emitter a fraction of a wavelength, the combined wavefront is aimed electronically — like a phased-array radar, but at optical frequencies. Change the phases, and the beam points somewhere new in microseconds.

[a] Beam steering on a chip
No gimbal, no rotating mirror, no motor to wear out. Steering is pure electronics, so a node is small, low-power, solid-state and cheap enough to put many around a plant — the mesh only works because each node is inexpensive.
[b] Tuned to the methane line
Our OPA emits in the 1650 nm band, where methane has a clean, well-known absorption line. That is a deliberate choice: it is methane-specific and outside the crowded telecom C-band, so the reading is about CH₄ and little else.
[c] Transmission, not backscatter
Nodes fire beams at each other across the plant and measure how much light survives the trip. Methane in the path removes light at 1650 nm; comparing sent vs received gives the gas along that line — a far stronger signal than waiting for a faint reflection to bounce back.
[d] A mesh, not a scanner
Because steering is instant and nodes sit at two heights, every node talks to many others. Hundreds of crossing beams weave a lattice through the plant's air — the raw material the edge-AI inverts into "which joint is leaking."

Where it stands: chip-scale OPA lidar at the methane wavelength is the hard, novel part — and it is the piece we are still developing. The mesh geometry, the transmission physics and the leak-inversion AI are what the interactive model below demonstrates on a real plant model. We do not sell this system yet.

interactive 3D

Turn the plant. See the mesh from every angle.

Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom. The model auto-rotates until you touch it; double-click to reset. The glowing markers show where beams cross the gas — the moment the system reads methane.

Open full-screen in a new tab ↗ Interactive · loads a 3D model (best on Wi-Fi)
how it works

Transmission spectroscopy, turned into a plant-wide picture

[1] Ring the plant
Low-power lidar nodes mount on existing structures at two heights and form a self-surveying mesh — no trenching, no fixed sample lines, no single blind spot.
[2] Read every path
Node-to-node transmission: each beam measures methane absorption along its entire line. Hundreds of crossing paths cover the volume between them, not just points on a wall.
[3] Locate & name
Edge-AI inverts the mesh of path readings back to the source and selects which known joint is leaking, how high it sits and how fast it grows — selection, not a reconstructed cloud.
[4] Alert & log
A continuous record for MRV/LDAR reporting and an alert on threshold to your control room — always-on between the handheld surveys operators run today.
what it is — and isn't

An honest picture of where this stands

It is a system that names which joint is leaking from continuous mesh readings — the answer an operator acts on.
It is not a 3D reconstruction of the gas cloud. The AI selects among known leak points; it does not paint the plume.
The chip — a methane-band OPA lidar at 1650 nm — is the enabler, and it is in development. The mesh, the physics and the inversion are what we simulate here.
Why us: the team already designs gas sensing end to end — own optics, electronics, firmware and calibration traceable to national standards.

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