Lidar Wind Profiler for Aircraft Wake Vortex Detection

A lidar wind profiler system for measurement of wind profiles and detection of aircraft wake vortices in the vicinity of an airport is presented. The system uses pairs of near-parallel elastic backscatter lidar transceivers for simultaneous measurement of all three components of wind speed. The transceivers are mounted on a common pointing structure that can be scanned to obtain spatial coverage. Narrow-duration (~7ns) Q-switched Yb:YAG lasers operating at a wavelength of 1030nm enable a high lidar backscatter resolution of ~1m. Narrowband filters coupled with etalons are used to reduce the background radiation for daytime operation. The wind speeds are extracted from the motion of aerosol structures by cross-correlating the aerosol backscatter profiles from the three channels. Measurements of backscatter and the derived wind speeds obtained from this system in early field tests are presented along with validation data from sonic and cup-and-vane anemometers located along the line of sight of the system.