A miniature LIDAR wind profiler for planetary boundary layer measurements based on semiconductor lasers

Details A miniature LIDAR wind profiler for planetary boundary layer measurements based on semiconductor lasers A miniature LIDAR wind profiler for planetary boundary layer measurements based on semiconductor lasers

Dec 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998phdt........77c&link_type=abstract

Thesis (PhD). UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK, Source DAI-B 59/06, p. 2931, Dec 1998, 194 pages.

Physics

Optics

Scientific paper

This dissertation investigates the feasibility of a low- power, miniature LIDAR wind profiler (MLWP) which is designed to measure range-resolved wind velocities in the planetary boundary layer. Such an instrument is desirable for autonomous wind velocity measurements not only for remote locations on Earth, but potentially for the surface of Mars. Current state-of-the-art systems use either coherent detection or direct detection to measure the Doppler-shift of laser light which is backscattered from aerosols and molecular constituents in the atmosphere. Coherent-detection systems require extremely stable, narrow-linewidth (~kHz) lasers and diffraction-limited receiver optics. The alternate direct-detection technique involves using the edge transmission characteristics of a narrow optical filter (such as a Fabry-Perot interferometer) to measure the Doppler-shift of the backscattered light, with reduced sensitivity to laser frequency stability and optical wavefront quality. We have investigated a LIDAR instrument based on the 'edge filter' technique which also uses a novel semiconductor MOPA laser design and a silicon APD-based photon-counting receiver at 852 nm to allow for reduced size and increased power efficiency as compared to technologies presently used for wind profiling. A mathematical model of the edge filter receiver is developed to allow for the identification and mitigation of systematic and random errors. A novel technique is also proposed to remove velocity errors caused by the unwanted molecular signal return. The novel MOPA laser transmitter design is developed and fully characterized The performance of the edge filter receiver has been characterized in the laboratory using the pulsed MOPA laser and a hard moving target for both large-signal and photon-counting detection. Velocity measurements were performed over a range of ±10 m/sec with an accuracy of better than 10% at moderate signal levels. Long integration times allowed for the accurate measurement of the wheel velocity (±1 m/sec) at low signal levels which are comparable to those expected from an altitude of 7.7 km. The performance of the system is limited primarily by systematic error and could be improved in ensuing work for making actual atmospheric wind velocity measurements.

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