Abstract

Previous DIAL performance simulations have employed "expected value" analytic expressions which relate the normalized variance of the measured quantity (e.g, water vapor density) to several variances, covariances, and values of other measurement parameters, such as received power and number of shot-pairs [1-4]. The calculated variance (error) vs height actually represents the expected value or ensemble average error that would be obtained through numerous DIAL measurements of N shot—pairs each, on a microscopically frozen atmosphere, However, atmospheric parameters vary both temporally and spatially in complex ways. A Monte Carlo DIAL computer simulation was developed to allow observation of relative magnitudes and interrelationships of various instrument and atmospheric effects. These include speckle; refractive turbulence; field curvature mismatch; transmitter and receiver diameters; wind velocity and/or lidar motion; pulse repetition frequency (PRE); time delay between pulses of one pulse—pair; total measurement time; pulse—pair averaging; pulse temporal profile; fluctuations in atmospheric backscatter and absorption; fluctuations in the densities of atmospheric constituents; and range smoothing.

© 1987 Optical Society of America