System and method for wind flow turbulence measurement by LiDAR in a complex terrain

A wind flow sensing method for determining a turbulence of wind flow at a set of different altitudes above a terrain from a set of measurements of radial velocities at each of the altitudes, wherein the method uses a processor coupled with stored instructions implementing the method, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor carry out steps of the method, comprising:

• receiving the set of measurements of radial velocities at line-of-site points above the terrain for each of the altitudes for a set of time steps;
• estimating velocity fields for each of the altitudes based on data assimilation of the velocity fields above the terrain to fit the measurements of radial velocities, wherein the velocity fields are estimated for the set of time steps;
• estimating unbiased horizontal velocities at each of the altitudes and for each time step as a horizontal projection of the corresponding radial velocities corrected with corresponding horizontal derivatives of vertical velocities of the estimated velocity fields determined for the corresponding time step;
• determining, at each of the altitudes, an average of the unbiased horizontal velocities for a period of time including the set of time steps;
• and
• determining, at each of the altitudes, a turbulence based on the unbiased horizontal velocities for each time step and the average of the unbiased horizontal velocity;
• and
• outputting the turbulence at each of the altitudes.