Ground-based forward-scattering bistatic Lidar for minute-scale, wide-area wind mapping.

Area of Science:

• Atmospheric Science
• Remote Sensing
• Optical Engineering

Background:

• Accurate horizontal wind mapping is crucial for renewable energy applications and atmospheric research.
• Existing wind measurement technologies have limitations in spatial coverage, temporal resolution, or cost-effectiveness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and model a novel ground-based bistatic Doppler-lidar network for wide-area, high-cadence horizontal wind mapping.
• To establish design rules for optimizing lidar network performance based on key parameters.

Main Methods:

• Development of a unified performance model integrating geometric factors, photon statistics, spectral sensitivity, and background radiance.
• Simulation and sensitivity analyses to assess the impact of network configuration (receiver number, ring radius) and operational parameters (wavelength, background, pulse number).

Main Results:

• Quantification of the influence of various parameters on wind measurement uncertainty and cadence.
• Identification of design principles linking uncertainty thresholds to lidar network layout and operational settings.
• Demonstration of the system's scalability for large-scale deployments.

Conclusions:

• The proposed bistatic Doppler-lidar network provides a viable solution for minute-cadence, wide-area horizontal wind measurement.
• The developed performance model and design rules facilitate optimized network deployment for applications like renewable energy site assessment and wind resource management.