Company · History

A multi-decade arc.

From laboratory laser remote sensing to a deployable instrument company.

1970s — 2000s

Roughly five decades of laser remote sensing science.

The instruments build on a long institutional lineage of multi-wavelength laser-induced fluorescence research across academic optics and ocean-physics laboratories. The foundational work — water Raman scattering as a built-in reference, characteristic fluorescence fingerprints per substance, multi-wavelength excitation — is what makes calibration-free, multi-parameter retrieval possible.

  • Multi-wavelength excitation
  • Raman-referenced retrieval
  • Bio-optical algorithms
2003 — 2022

Two decades of expedition fieldwork.

Twenty-plus years of LIF LiDAR practice across more than fifty water sites of every salinity and trophic status — the Black Sea and Caspian, the Arctic Kara Sea, Patos Lagoon in Brazil, Issyk-Kul, the Volga, the Gorky Reservoir, and Lake Balaton. The first peer-reviewed UFL water-quality paper appeared in 2013; the cal/val record against Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 followed.

  • 50+ water sites
  • First UFL paper · 2013
  • Sentinel-2 / -3 cal/val
2022 — present

Founding of LIFeLiDAR SAS.

Incorporated in Sophia Antipolis, approved by DRIEETS in 2022, recognised by French Deeptech, and backed by France 2030. A LIFL-11 system was delivered under contract in 2023. In October 2025 the full instrument suite — LIFL-11, MFL-12, and mHR-2 — completed its first marine field tests at Venice in the ESA PHY2FLEX campaign.

  • DRIEETS-approved · 2022
  • Backed by France 2030
  • ESA PHY2FLEX · Venice 2025