Xcalibur Smart Mapping today announced a collaboration with Cloudline, a provider of lighter‑than‑air airship platforms, to trial Xcalibur’s HMAS Raman LiDAR system for airborne measurement of near‑surface gas concentrations. The trial will evaluate the use of a low‑speed, long‑endurance airship as a stable airborne platform for detecting and mapping fugitive gas emissions, with an initial focus on methane, ammonia, and hydrogen.

The collaboration brings together Xcalibur’s expertise in airborne sensing and system integration with Cloudline’s airship technology, creating a new capability for persistent, low‑altitude atmospheric monitoring over industrial, energy, and infrastructure environments.

Trial overview

• Platform integration: Installation and flight integration of the HMAS Raman LiDAR system on a Cloudline airship platform.
• Gas detection and mapping: Airborne measurement of ground‑level gas concentration variations, with a focus on methane, ammonia, and hydrogen.
• Operational evaluation: Assessment of airship flight stability, speed control, endurance, and suitability for repeatable low‑altitude survey operations.
• Data validation: Evaluation of spatial resolution, sensitivity, and repeatability of HMAS gas measurements under representative operational conditions.

Technology focus: HMAS Raman LiDAR

HMAS is a Raman LiDAR system under development by Xcalibur Smart Mapping to enable remote sensing of atmospheric gas species from the air. By leveraging Raman scattering, the system is designed to distinguish specific gas signatures and support quantitative concentration mapping close to the ground.

Mapping fugitive emissions from the air has applications across energy production, industrial facilities, transport corridors, and environmental monitoring, as well as exploring for natural sources of these emissions. Methane, ammonia, and hydrogen in particular present growing operational, safety, and regulatory challenges, requiring scalable monitoring solutions that can cover large areas while maintaining spatial detail.

The airship platform offers a unique operational profile for this application, combining low airspeed, long dwell times, and the ability to operate at low altitude with reduced acoustic and aerodynamic disturbance compared with conventional fixed‑ or rotary‑wing aircraft.

“Developing HMAS is about enabling a new class of airborne gas sensing that bridges the gap between ground measurements and wide‑area monitoring,” said Andrew Lockwood, VP of Technology, Xcalibur Smart Mapping. “An airship platform gives us the opportunity to fly slower, lower, and for longer—conditions that are particularly well suited to validating Raman LiDAR performance for near‑surface gas mapping.”

“Cloudline’s airships are designed for missions where persistence, stability, and efficiency matter,” said Spencer Horne, Founder and CEO, Cloudline. “Working with Xcalibur allows us to explore how lighter‑than‑air platforms can support advanced environmental and industrial monitoring payloads that are difficult to operate from conventional aircraft.”

Next steps

The trial program will be conducted through Q3 2026, with results used to guide further development of the HMAS system and assess its suitability for operational deployment. Xcalibur Smart Mapping and Cloudline will also evaluate potential use cases across energy, mining, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring sectors.