Airborne cw Doppler lidar (ADOLAR)

During the last 10 years the DLR container LDA (Laser Doppler Anemometer) was used for many wind related measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer. The experience out of this were used to construct an airborne Doppler lidar ADOLAR. Based on the available Doppler lidars it is now proposed to perform a campaign to demonstrate the concept of the spaceborne sensor ALADIN, and to answer some questions concerning the signal quality from clouds, water and land. For the continuous wave CO2 laser, the energy is focused by the telescope into the region of investigation. Some of the radiation is back scattered by small aerosol particles drifting with the wind speed through the sensing volume. The back scattered radiation is collected by the telescope and detected by coherent technique. With the laser Doppler method one gets the radial wind component. To determine the magnitude and direction of the horizontal wind, some form of scanning in azimuth and elevation is required. To keep the airborne system compact, the transceiver optics is directly coupled to a wedge scanner which provides the conical scan with the axis in Nadir direction from the aircraft. The system ADOLAR was tested in 1994. Results of the flight over the lake Ammersee are presented and are compared with the data of the inertial reference system of the aircraft.