Error reduction of the Doppler lidar signal using a re-normalization method

Abstract

In this paper, we present a re-normalization method for a Doppler signal of a Doppler lidar system. For the Doppler lidar system, we used an injection-seeded pulsed Nd:YAG laser as a transmitter and an iodine cell as a Doppler frequency discriminator. A frequency locking system that uses the absorption feature of iodine gas is too sensitive to the external or internal noises (iodine cell temperature instability, laser frequency fluctuation, environmental noises, etc.) to maintain its locking point ideally, and this frequency locking error makes the Doppler lidar system acquire the noises as the Doppler frequency shifts. To reduce the Doppler signal error induced by a frequency locking error, we used a re-normalization method by an addition of a laser beam path separated from a transmitter to the Doppler frequency discriminator for re-normalization. In this method, fluctuations of the Doppler signal were reduced using the reference signal. The reduced amount of standard deviation between the Doppler signal and the re-normalization signal was 4.838×10 –3 and the Doppler signals showed a 53.3% fluctuation reduction of the averaged error value by this method.