Abstract
The Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) Instrument is the first fully-engineered, autonomous Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) System for the measurement of water vapor in the troposphere (aerosol and cloud measurements are included). LASE uses a double-pulsed Ti:Sapphire laser for the transmitter with a 30 ns pulse length and 150 mJ/pulse. The laser beam is “seeded” to operate on a selected water vapor absorption line in the 815-nm region using a laser diode and an onboard absorption reference cell. A 40 cm diameter telescope collects the backscattered signals and directs them onto two detectors. LASE collects DIAL data at 5 Hz while onboard a NASA/Ames ER-2 aircraft flying at altitudes from 16–21 km. LASE was designed to operate autonomously within the environment and physical constraints of the ER-2 aircraft and to make water vapor profile measurements across the troposphere to better than 10% accuracy. LASE has flown 19 times during the development of the instrument and the validation of the science data. This paper describes the design, operation, and reliability of the LASE Instrument.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Browell, E. V., Wilkerson, T. D., McIlrath, T. J.: Water vapor differential absorption lidar development and evaluation. Appl. Opt. 18 (1979) 3474–3483.
Browell, E.: Remote sensing of tropospheric gases and aerosols with an airborne DIAL system. In Optical Laser Remote Sensing, edited by D. K. Killinger and A. Mooradian, Springer-Verlag, New York (1983) 138–147.
Ismail, S., Browell, E. V.: Airborne and spaceborne lidar measurements of water vapor profiles: A sensitivity analysis. Appl. Opt. 28 (1989) 3603–3615.
Browell, E. V.: LASE Validation Experiment. In 18th ILRC Proceedings, Springer Verlag (1996) this book.
Barnes, J. C., Edwards, W. C., Petway, L. B., Wang, L. G.: NASA Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment’s Titanium-doped Sapphire Tunable Laser System, Optical Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere, Sixth Topical Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 1993.
Barnes, N. P., Barnes, J. C.: Injection Seeding I: Theory, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, Vol. 29, No. 10, October 1993, pp. 2670–2683.
Barnes, J. C., Barnes, N. P., Wang, L. G., Edwards, W. C.: Injection Seeding II: Ti:Al2O3 Experiments, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, Vol. 29, No. 10, October, 1993, pp. 2683–2692.
Rines, G. A., Moulton, P. F., Harrison, J.: Narrowband, High Energy Ti:Al2O3 Lidar Transmitter for Spacecraft Sensing, Proceedings of the OSA Topical Meeting on Tunable Solid State Lasers, North Falmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, (1989) 2–8
Wang, L. G., Barnes, J. C., Edwards, W. C., Hess, R. V., Ponsardin, P., Sasche, G.: Diode Laser Injection Seeding of a Pulsed Ti:Al2O3 Laser for Remote Sensing, OSA 1991 Annual Meeting, San Jose, California, November 1991.
Sachse, G. W., Wang, L. G., Ismail, S., Browell, E. V., Banziger, C.: Multi-Wavelength Sequential Seeding Method for Water Vapor DIAL Measurements, Optical Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere Sixth Topical Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 1993.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Moore, A.S. et al. (1997). Development of the Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE)—An Advanced Airborne DIAL Instrument. In: Ansmann, A., Neuber, R., Rairoux, P., Wandinger, U. (eds) Advances in Atmospheric Remote Sensing with Lidar. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60612-0_69
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60612-0_69
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-61887-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-60612-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive