Performance of Continuous-wave Coherent Doppler Lidar for WindMeasurement

Abstract

A system for continuous-wave coherent Doppler lidar (CW lidar), made up of all-fiber structures and a coaxial transmission telescope, was set up for wind measurement in Hefei (31.84 N, 117.27 E), Anhui province of China. The lidar uses a fiber laser as a light source at a wavelength of 1.55 μm, and focuses the laser beam on a location 80 m away from the telescope. Using the CW lidar, radial wind measurement was carried out. Subsequently, the spectra of the atmospheric backscattered signal were analyzed. We tested the noise and obtained the lower limit of wind velocity as 0.721 m/s, through the Rayleigh criterion. According to the number of Doppler peaks in the radial wind spectrum, a classification retrieval algorithm (CRA) combining a Gaussian fitting algorithm and a spectral centroid algorithm is designed to estimate wind velocity. Compared to calibrated pulsed coherent wind lidar, the correlation coefficient for the wind velocity is 0.979, with a standard deviation of 0.103 m/s. The results show that CW lidar offers satisfactory performance and the potential for application in wind measurement.