EYE-SAFE SOLID-STATE DOPPLER LIDAR

THE GOAL OF PHASE I AND PHASE II TOGETHER WOULD BE TO BUILD AND DELIVER TO AFGL AN EYE-SAFE DOPPLER WIND-SENSING LIDAR AT 2 OR 2.1 MICRONS. THIS LIDAR WOULD BE INTEGRATED INTO THE AFGL MOBILE LIDAR LABORATORY. DURING PHASE I, WE PROPOSE TO BUILD AND TEST A KEY COMPONENT OF THE LIDAR SYSTEM, THE HETERODYNE DETECTOR. WE WOULD FIRST DEMONSTRATE OFFSET FREQUENCY LOCKING OF A PAIR OF DOPPLER SHIFTS DUE TO PLATFORM VELOCITY. THEN WE WOULD BUILD TWO HETERODYNEDETECTION SYSTEMS, ONE USING SINGLE-MODE FIBER AND ONE USING FREESPACE BEAMS. WE WOULD COMPARE THE EFFICIENCY AND WORKABILITY OF THESE TWO SYSTEMS. THE FINAL EXPERIMENTS OF PHASE I WOULD BE TO COMPARE RETURN SIGNAL OBTAINED WITH A CW LABORATORY LASER RADAR TO THE SIGNAL EXPECTED FROM THEORY. ALSO DURING PHASE I, WE WOULD PLAN A PULSED DOPPLER LIDAR SUITABLE FOR FIELD TESTING IN PHASE II, AND OBTAIN THE SPECIFICATIONS REQUIRED OF LASERS USED IN THE AFGL MOBILE LIDAR LAB.