BARCOS, an automation and remote control system for atmospheric observations with a Bruker interferometer

In order to make long-term monitoring of the atmospheric composition using commercial Bruker Fourier transform spectrometers more cost effective, a system called BARCOS has been developed. The system enables one to perform the operation of the spectrometric atmospheric observations in a remotely controlled or autonomous way, without human presence at the measuring site. Several observation geometries are foreseen, including solar and lunar absorption spectrometry. BARCOS is built using existing commercial hardware and software components, including the Bruker software for the operation of the spectrometer (OPUS) and runs in a personal computer (Microsoft) environment. It includes a small meteorological station. It is a flexible system, allowing manual interventions at any time. To run BARCOS effectively, the only prerequisite is that internet access is available at the site of operation. This article describes the BARCOS system hardware and software configurations.