  The Planetary Camera and Spectrograph (PCS) for the Extremely Large Telescope
(ELT) will be dedicated to detecting and characterising nearby exoplanets with
sizes from sub-Neptune to Earth-size in the neighbourhood of the Sun. This goal
is achieved by a combination of eXtreme Adaptive Optics (XAO), coronagraphy and
spectroscopy. PCS will allow us not only to take images, but also to look for
biosignatures such as molecular oxygen in the exoplanets' atmospheres. This
article describes the PCS primary science goals, the instrument concept and the
research and development activities that will be carried out over the coming
years.
