1996/12/20 by Russell Targ, Bruce Steakley, James G. Hawley +10 · 1 citation
Engineering · Environmental Science · #Surface Roughness and Optical Measurements #Laser-induced spectroscopy and plasma #Atmospheric aerosols and clouds #Lidar #Remote sensing #Flight test #Optics #Wind shear #Environmental science #Radar #Laser #Ranging #Wind speed #Meteorology #Aerospace engineering #Physics #Geology #Geodesy #Engineering
paper · doi:10.1364/ao.35.007117
openalex publication_date 1996/12/20 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
The use of airborne laser radar (lidar) to measure wind velocities and to detect turbulence in front of an aircraft in real time can significantly increase fuel efficiency, flight safety, and terminal area capacity. We describe the flight-test results for two coherent lidar airborne shear sensor (CLASS) systems and discuss their agreement with our theoretical simulations. The 10.6-μm CO(2) system (CLASS-10) is a flying brassboard; the 2.02-μm Tm:YAG solid-state system (CLASS-2) is configured in a rugged, light-weight, high-performance package. Both lidars have shown a wind measurement accuracy of better than 1 m/s.