Optical Scintillometer/Doppler Radar Instrument For Profiling Turbulence

James H. Churnside; Steven F. Clifford

doi:10.1117/12.960869

11 October 1989 Optical Scintillometer/Doppler Radar Instrument For Profiling Turbulence

James H. Churnside, Steven F. Clifford

Proceedings Volume 1115, Propagation Engineering; (1989) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.960869
Event: SPIE 1989 Technical Symposium on Aerospace Sensing, 1989, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

The scintillation of starlight contains information about the refractive turbulence strength in the atmosphere. The fluctuations to each two-dimensional spatial wavenumber in the scintillation pattern are caused by turbulent features that have the same two-dimensional wavenumber. Therefore, a receiver that spatially filters the scintillations in starlight can measure the amount of turbulence in the atmosphere in a narrow band of wavenumbers. If the entire atmosphere were moving with constant velocity, the dominant wavenumber would produce a constant frequency as the turbulence moved across the filter. However, wind velocity typically varies with altitude, and turbulence at different altitudes will produce different frequencies. If the wind velocity profile is known, the vertical profile of Cn2 can be inferred from the frequency distribution of scintillations at a particular wavenumber.

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James H. Churnside and Steven F. Clifford "Optical Scintillometer/Doppler Radar Instrument For Profiling Turbulence", Proc. SPIE 1115, Propagation Engineering, (11 October 1989); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.960869

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KEYWORDS

Radar

Turbulence

Scintillation

Spatial filters

Receivers

Atmospheric optics

Doppler effect

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