Atmospheric aerosol monitoring by an elastic Scheimpflug lidar system

This work demonstrates a new approach - Scheimpflug lidar - for atmospheric aerosol monitoring. The atmospheric backscattering echo of a high-power continuous-wave laser diode is received by a Newtonian telescope and recorded by a tilted imaging sensor satisfying the Scheimpflug condition. The principles as well as the lidar equation are discussed in details. A Scheimpflug lidar system operating at around 808 nm is developed and employed for continuous atmospheric aerosol monitoring at daytime. Localized emission, atmospheric variation, as well as the changes of cloud height are observed from the recorded lidar signals. The extinction coefficient is retrieved according to the slope method for a homogeneous atmosphere. This work opens up new possibilities of using a compact and robust Scheimpflug lidar system for atmospheric aerosol remote sensing.