System and method to measure an atmospheric thermodynamic profile with a compact, all-fiber and eye-safe Lidar
AssigneeUniversity Corporation for Atmospheric Research
InventorsFarzad Cyrus Foroughi Abari, Scott M Spuler
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Abstract
A lidar system and method to enable simultaneous accurate and high spatial and temporal resolution measurements of atmospheric temperature, wind, and water vapor. The technology employs a laser (101), a telescope (110), an acousto-optic modulator (105) or an electro-optic modulator (205), a Thulium-doped fiber amplifier (206), and an optical circulator (108) which projects a laser signal into the atmosphere toward a phenomenon to be studied. The laser is reflected or backscattered by the atmospheric phenomena and retrieved by the telescope (110), where the laser is processed by a signal sampler and processor (114) for analysis.
Claims19
A method comprising:
- generating at least one pulse train laser signal using a master oscillator;
- locking the frequency of the at least one pulse train laser signal using a frequency locking mechanism;
- interleaving the at least one pulse train laser to create a single laser beam;
- splitting the single laser beam into a laser first portion and a laser second portion;
- feeding the laser first portion into a modulator;
- routing the laser first portion from the modulator into a Thulium-doped fiber amplifier;
- routing the laser first portion from the Thulium-doped fiber amplifier into an optical circulator;
- transmitting the laser first portion from a telescope;
- reflecting the laser first portion off of atmospheric phenomena;
- collecting the reflected laser first portion using a telescope;
- mixing the reflected laser first portion with the laser second portion and detecting the result by integrated photodetector;
- sampling the mixed reflected laser first portion and laser second portion;
- and
- retrieving at least one parameters of interest from the sampled signal.
A system comprising:
- at least one master oscillator (101) to generate at least one pulse train laser beam;
- a frequency locking mechanism (111) to measure and lock the at least one pulse train laser beam frequency;
- a three by one switch (209) to sequentially interleave the at least one pulse train laser beam and create a single laser beam;
- a beam splitter (104) to divide the single laser beam into a laser beam first portion and a laser beam second portion;
- a modulator (105) to receive the laser beam first portion;
- a Thulium-doped fiber amplifier (107) to receive the laser beam first portion from the modulator;
- an optical circulator (108) to receive the laser beam first portion from the thulium-doped fiber amplifier (107);
- a transceiver telescope (110) to transmit the laser beam first portion and to receive the reflected laser beam;
- at least one photodetector;
- a balanced mixer (113) to receive and combine the reflected laser beam first portion and the laser beam second portion and detect a signal through the at least one photodetector;
- and
- a sampling mechanism (114) to receive the combined signal from the mixer (113) and retrieve parameters of interest.
A system comprising:
- at least one signal generating oscillator (101);
- a switch (109) to combine signals from the at least one signal generating oscillator (101);
- a modulator (105) to receive and modulate the combined signal;
- a Thulium-doped fiber amplifier (107) to amplify the modulated signal;
- an optical circulator (108) to use the amplified and modulated signal;
- a transceiver telescope (110) to transmit and receive the amplified and modulated signal from the optical circulator (108);
- and
- a sampling mechanism (114) to sample the received amplified and modulated signal,
- wherein a coherent Doppler lidar all-fiber pulsed heterodyne is used with the at least one master oscillator (101).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.