The ABLE ACE Pupil Plane Imaging Experiment

Stephen C. Coy; Robert W. Praus II

doi:10.1117/12.281029

6 August 1997 The ABLE ACE Pupil Plane Imaging Experiment

Stephen C. Coy, Robert W. Praus II

Proceedings Volume 3065, Laser Radar Technology and Applications II; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.281029
Event: AeroSense '97, 1997, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

The ABLE ACE pupil plane imaging experiment (PPI) measured the irradiance distributions of individual pulses originating from two laser sources on the ABLE ACE transmitter aircraft and incident upon the aperture of the receiver aircraft. The laser pulses were very short, and PPI has high spatial resolution but very low temporal sampling, so the PPI data is simply a series of uncorrelated snapshots of the illuminated aperture.Form the PPI data we can compute the irradiance variance, the probability density function of irradiance, the irradiance covariance function, and the amplitude correlation function, and other irradiance statistics. These statistics can be used for comparison with theory, simulation, and other measurements, and also to estimate the strength of turbulence. The amplitude correlation function is a direct measure of the Strehl ration and optical transfer function that would be achieved with perfect phase correction; this gives us an upper bound on the performance of an actual ABL system. We have PPI data from all ABLE ACE flights, over almost all of the time the science lasers were firing. We have compared PPI results with theory, simulation, simultaneous measurements, and a previous experiment. We see good agreement on all counts.

Citation Download Citation

Stephen C. Coy and Robert W. Praus II "The ABLE ACE Pupil Plane Imaging Experiment", Proc. SPIE 3065, Laser Radar Technology and Applications II, (6 August 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.281029

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