An imaging lidar instrument with the capability of measuring the frequency response of a backscattered return signal up to 3.6 kHz is demonstrated. The instrument uses a commercial microchip frequency-doubled pulsed Nd:YAG laser with a 7.2 kHz pulse repetition rate, a pulse duration of less than 1 ns, and a pulse energy of greater than 10 microJ. A 15.2 cm commercial telescope is used to collect the backscattered signal, and a photomultiplier tube is used to monitor the scattered light. This instrument is designed for range- and angle-resolved optical detection of honeybees for explosives and land-mine detection. The instrument is capable of distinguishing between the scattered light from honeybees and other sources through the frequency content of the return signal caused by the wing-beat modulation of the backscattered light. Detection of honeybees near a bee hive and spatial mapping of honeybee densities near feeders are demonstrated.
The high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL) instrument described in this paper utilizes the fundamental and second-harmonic output from an injection seeded Nd:YAG laser as the laser transmitter. The light scattered in the atmosphere is collected using a commercial Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with the optical receiver train first splitting the fundamental and second-harmonic return signal with the fundament light monitored using an avalanche photodiode. The second-harmonic return signal is mode matched into a tunable confocal Fabry-Perot (CFP) interferometer with a free spectral range of 7.5 GHz and a finesse of 50.7 (312) at 532 nm (1064 nm) placed in the optical receiver for spectrally filtering the molecular and aerosol return signals. The light transmitted through the CFP is used to monitor the aerosol return signal while the light reflected from the CFP is used to monitor the molecular return signal. Data collected with the HSRL are presented and inversion results are compared to a co-located solar radiometer, demonstrating the successful operation of the instrument. The CFP-based filtering technique successfully employed by this HSRL instrument is easily portable to other arbitrary wavelengths, thus allowing for the future development of multiwavelength HSRL instruments.
Coordinated observational data of atmospheric aerosols were collected over a 24-h period between 2300 mountain daylight time (MDT) on at Bozeman, Montana (45.668N, 111.048W, elevation 1530 m) using a collocated two-color lidar, a diode-laser-based water vapor differential absorption lidar (DIAL), a solar radiometer, and a ground-based nephelometer. The optical properties and spatial distribution of the atmospheric aerosols were inferred from the observational data collected using the collocated instruments as part of a closure experiment under dry conditions with a relative humidity below 60%. The aerosol lidar ratio and aerosol optical depth retrieved at 532 and 1064 nm using the two-color lidar and solar radiometer agreed with one another to within their individual uncertainties while the scattering component of the aerosol extinction measured using the nephelometer matched the scattering component of the aerosol extinction retrieved using the 532-nm channel of the two-color lidar and the singlescatter albedo retrieved using the solar radiometer. Using existing aerosol models developed with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) data, a thin aerosol layer observed over Bozeman was most likely identified as smoke from forest fires burning in California; Washington; British Columbia, Canada; and northwestern Montana. The intrusion of the thin aerosol layer caused a change in the atmospheric radiative forcing by a factor of 1.8 6 0.5 due to the aerosol direct effect.
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