Wind ranging and velocimetry with low peak power and long-duration modulated laser

A novel approach to simultaneous wind ranging and velocimetry using low peak power, long-duration modulated laser pulse transmissions is proposed. Received signals backscattered by aerosol particles are processed by a multi-reference matched-filter (MRMF) which performs matched filter processing between the received signal and several reference signals in parallel and outputs a range-velocity profile of received power. Ranging and velocimetry are performed simultaneously by estimating received power, radial velocity, and velocity dispersion from a velocity profile at an arbitrary range in the range-velocity profile. The accuracies of the three estimates improve in proportion to the square root of pulse duration; that is, a 100 times longer pulse is equivalent to a 10-dB amplification.