Remote Site Wind Measurement Capability

Dove Electronics, Inc. has designed and fabricated the most advanced active scintillomter for measuring wind speed, wind direction and atmospheric turbulence for the U.S. Army and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This device is called HOLODAR and achieves its superior performance through the use of multiplex holographic optical spatial filters. We are now proposing a smart passive scintillometer to meet the TECOM need for a high performance passive scintillometer for measuring wind parameters. This device will achieve high performance through the use of fractal theory, wavelet theory, neural networks, extensive scene and image design and test databases. This effort will also use an enhanced version of the theory of passive wind sensing found in the "Theoretical Analysis and Experimental Evaluation of a Prototype Passive Sensor to Measure Crosswinds", by Clifford, Ochs and Wang dated September 1974. The key to a successful design and fabrication of an outstanding passive scinillometer is the formulation of an effective way to process and exploit the varying uncertainties and complexities in the naturally illuminated scenes. The large database of images and naturally illuminated scenes will form the starting point of the required analysis. It is anticipated that a smart sensor will provide best performance in a wide variation of scene dynamics.