More than 10 years of operation of a cw-Doppler lidar for boundary layer winds together with the hardware development of a compact laser Doppler anemometer for ballistic wind measurements and the development of an airborne sensor, concluded in the proposed design of an operational system. The different problems with lasers (10 micron systems vs. 2 micron systems, pulsed or cw), detectors and atmospheric stability conditions will be presented. The hardware of the compact laser Doppler anemometer and the airborne sensor ADOLAR will be analyzed with respect of a proposed automatic operational system. Criteria of the proposed system are the laser, the detection and signal processing algorithm and the reliability of the system in a harsh environment like a battlefield. For the laser the first criteria is the all- weather capability. A cw laser system is affected by a low overcast. Without additional information on the cloud base height the results may be misinterpreted. A pulsed system gives both, wind profile and cloud base height. All other criteria for the selection of an optimal sensor will be presented.

Date Published: 26 June 1996
PDF: 16 pages
Proc. SPIE 2748, Laser Radar Technology and Applications, (26 June 1996); doi: 10.1117/12.243575

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2748:
Laser Radar Technology and Applications
Gary W. Kamerman, Editor(s)