The automated measurements provided by the FATI platform are: air micro-climate (air temperature, air relative humidity, incoming and outgoing radiation, wind speed, soil microclimate (soil temperature and volumetric soil water content), canopy temperature with fixed infrared camera's that can distinguish individual containers (useful for detecting heat stress). In addition, the PLECO research group has a wide range of devices for manual spot-measurements, including gas exchange and chorophyll fluorescence devices to assess plant stress. Regarding soil measurements, leachate can be collected in drainage water, and the large number of experimental objects typically allows for destructive soil sampling (soil cores). State-of-the-art measurement facilities for VOCs with dedicated specialists are also present (PTRMS-TOF), and chambers for greenhouse gas exchange with the atmosphere can be set up. The research group running the FATI platform has a staff of 60 people led by four professors, and can thus provide a wide range of expertise including plant stress ecophysiology, plant community ecology, ecosystem biogeochemistry, soil microbial ecology. The molecular lab within the group has facilities for metabarcoding of bacteria, fungi, and protists, and downstream bioinformatic processing; within the wider department collaboration is possible on plant or soil transcriptomics/metagenomics. The FATI platform is (or is among) the most advanced free-air warming facilities worldwide. It was developed from multiple earlier prototypes during 25 years of research on climate-warming simulation in free air conditions during which artefacts of the technique were successively assessed and removed. Both measuring and sampling in ongoing experiments and setting up novel experiments are possible.

The platform can be used for academic research, but can also be used by private users to, for example, test the influence of future climates on new crop variaties, seed mixtures, etc.