Eyesafe coherent detection wind lidar based on a beam-combined pulsed laser source

We report on a coherent wind lidar built with two coherently-beam-combined fiber amplifiers. The lidar performances of the combined-amplifier and the single-amplifier are compared using two criterions: carrier-to-noise ratio and wind speed noise floor. In both cases, lidar performances are not degraded with a combined source and are close to the theoretical optimum. Combined sources are well suited to improve coherent wind lidar accuracy, range, and integration time.