Data management in EarthCARE satellite Cal/Val exercise

The main objective at this project is to create a software that makes the Comparation/Validation exercise between two LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) systems. Those systems, although they are equivalent conceptually, they apply different technology. The first system was developed by CommSensLab group from UPC (participants in the creation of EARLINET); on the other hand, SigmaSpace, another business under Godard Space Flight Center specifications (belonging to NASA), that manage the MPLnet network following the Micro-Pulse LiDAR concept. Both have the same purpose; they measure the atmosphere aerosols. The comparation between the MPLnet LiDAR system and the one that will be used at the EarthCARE mission will be realized in a later phase, outside the scopes of this project. The software pretends to intercompare the Earlinet lidar from UPC with a MPLnet system. To achieve this objective, it has been used MATLAB tool, since we can find some functions that facilitate the work when we are reading the type of file is used to save all the information obtained from the lidar systems. Lidar systems use the format NetCDF to save all the data. There have been created some functions to make the main code cleaner as possible. Also, it has been used GUIs (Graphic User Interface) that are the windows that the user can see when is using the software. It has been achieved an automatic download of all the necessary files that the user needs to start the comparation between the systems. When the files are downloaded, plots can be generated where the user can see the comparation between the systems in specific parameters that are interesting to compare. Those parameters are backscatter, extinction, volume depolarization, particle depolarization and range corrected signal. Also, it has been implemented the option to create a Word report with all the plots selected by the user and each one of the plots with a caption that describes the necessary information. The figures used at the r