Survey Systems

LI-COR soil gas flux survey systems are designed with flexibility in mind.

Pair the Smart Chamber with a gas analyzer of your choosing and connect using your mobile device or laptop via the built-in Wi-Fi web server. See live flux data with a LI-COR gas analyzer or connect to a third-party analyzer and the chamber will log GPS and ancillary data for your flux measurements.

LI-COR survey systems are completely self-powered by long-lasting batteries and are readily portable. This lets you place your soil collars where you want—even in hard to reach locations—and keeps you moving from collar to collar quickly and easily.

Get a Quote Design Your Own System

Advantages of a survey system

A survey system allows you to take measurements from many points to characterize soil gas flux throughout your research site.

Assess spatial variability of soil gas flux over a large area.
Move quickly from one collar to the next to measure many points across your site.
Ideal for locations where instruments cannot be deployed long-term.

Smart Chamber

Quickly and comfortably assess the spatial variability of a wide range of gas species— such as CO₂, CH₄, or N₂O— with this portable, self-powered 20 cm survey chamber and a gas analyzer.

The Smart Chamber Advantage

Built on a foundation of soil chamber innovations and patents, the Smart Chamber also includes many other beneficial features for researchers.

Real-time flux processing

The Smart Chamber controls gas flow to the analyzer and provides real-time flux calculations when connected to LI-COR Gas Analyzers for CO₂, CH₄, or N₂O measurements. Flux data are integrated with auxiliary sensor data, GPS information, and time stamps, and can be viewed in real time or saved and downloaded later.

Web server and graphical user interface

See your fluxes with real-time calculations powered by an embedded Wi-Fi web server. Monitor Smart Chamber measurements and diagnostics and view data files using your smartphone, tablet, or laptop, through an intuitive, browser-based graphical user interface.

Ultimate gas analyzer flexibility

Choose your gas species by interest—not analyzer compatibility. The Smart Chamber can connect to third-party gas analyzers. Data is collected concurrently with Smart Chamber data and the two sets can later be merged with SoilFluxPro™ Software to calculate fluxes.

The Smart Chamber can even be used without a gas analyzer with the Trace Gas Sampling Kit. This simple add-on allows you to collect gas samples and use the Smart Chamber for time, location, auxiliary measurements, and other data.

Built for field research

Built with field researchers in mind, the Smart Chamber is easily portable and self-powered with batteries that last up to 34 hours (2 batteries, 17 hours per battery and 2 minutes per collar active time, 20 collars total per hour). Monitor flux measurements from your mobile device and track measurement locations with GPS data. Later, visualize a map of your fluxes using Google Earth™ and a .kml file created in SoilFluxPro.

See more of what makes the Smart Chamber different

View the Smart Chamber Page

Gas Analyzers

Don’t be limited by compatibility issues. Choose a gas analyzer that measures your gases of interest, connect to the Smart Chamber, and get started. When connected with a LI-COR gas analyzer, you can see real-time flux data using your Wi-Fi enabled mobile device or laptop.

LI-870 CO2 Analyzer and LI-7810 CH4/CO2/H2O Trace Gas Analyzer

LI-7810 CH₄/CO₂/H₂O Trace Gas Analyzer

The LI-7810 CH₄/CO₂/H₂O Trace Gas Analyzer offers high performance methane measurements in a surprisingly rugged and portable design. Precise and stable measurements are the result of a combination of several patented technologies integrated with Optical Feedback-Cavity Enhanced Absorption Spectroscopy (OF-CEAS).

Provides the precision of a benchtop analyzer in a portable, weather-resistant case
Operates on hot-swappable, long-lasting batteries
Has an available backpack harness
CH₄ Precision (1σ): 0.60 ppb at 2 ppm with 1 second averaging
Maximum Drift: < 1 ppb per 24-hour period

LI-7820 N₂O/H₂O Trace Gas Analyzer

The LI-7820 N₂O/H₂O Trace Gas Analyzer is a low power, rugged addition to survey and long-term systems. This highly precise and user-friendly N₂O analyzer pairs easily with the LI-7810 for added CO₂ and CH₄ measurements or the LI-870 for added CO₂ measurements.

Requires low power and uses hot-swappable, long-lasting batteries
Works with SoilFluxPro™ Software for easy data management and analysis
Has an available backpack harness
N₂O Precision (1σ): 0.40 ppb with 1 second averaging at 330 ppb

LI-870 CO₂/H₂O Analyzer

Get rapid, repeatable measurements of soil CO₂ flux. The LI-870 CO₂/H₂O Analyzer is designed for survey measurements with the Smart Chamber. This portable, lightweight analyzer is capable of a full day of survey measurements, and power is supplied directly from the Smart Chamber.

Small and lightweight for a full day of survey measurements.
Low power consumption: 20 hours field use (2 batteries; 10 hours per battery with 2 minutes per collar active time and 20 collars total per hour).
Low maintenance analyzer with a user-serviceable optical bench
Accuracy: Within 1.5% of reading
Measurement range: 0 to 20,000 ppm

If you are looking for a laser-based solution for soil CO₂ flux survey measurements, the LI-7815 CO₂/H₂O Trace Gas Analyzer is available. Ask us which solution is a good fit for your research.

Additional Gas Measurement Options

A third-party gas analyzer can be used with the Smart Chamber. Data from both the analyzer and the Smart Chamber are collected simultaneously. Then both datasets can be merged with SoilFluxPro Software to determine the fluxes.

Processing measurements in your lab? The Trace Gas Sampling Kit is a simple add-on to the Smart Chamber that lets you work without a gas analyzer. Simply collect gas samples from sampling tubes and use the Smart Chamber for time, location, auxiliary, and other data.

SoilFluxPro Software

SoilFluxPro is a powerful, free software provided with all LI-COR survey systems for processing, management, analysis, and visualization of soil gas flux data.

Visit the SoilFluxPro Page

Where will your research take you?