The research and protection of the ocean ecosystem are key works to maintain the marine status and develop marine functions. However, human’s knowledge about the ocean is greatly limited. Now, in situ, acoustic and remote sensing methods have been applied in the research to understand and explore the ocean. Especially, the lidar is one outstanding remote sensing method for its high spatial and temporal resolution as well as the ability of the vertical detection. Highspectral- resolution lidar (HSRL) employs an ultra-narrow spectral filter to distinguish scattering signals between particles and water molecules without assuming a lidar ratio and obtains optical properties of the ocean with a high accuracy. Nevertheless, the complexity of the seawater causes variable marine optical properties, which gives huge potentiality to develop a HSRL working at different wavelengths in order to promote the inversion accuracy and increase the detection depth. The field-widened Michelson interferometer (FWMI), whose central transmittance can be tuned to any wavelength and field of view is large, can be employed as the HSRL spectral filter and solves problems that the operating wavelength of the iodine filter is fixed and the field of view of Fabry-Perot interferometer is small. The principle of the HSRL based on the FWMI designing for the ocean remote sensing will be presented in detail. In addition, the availability of the application of the FWMI influenced by the disturbance of the states of Brillouin scattering is analyzed and the preliminary theory shows that the HSRL instrument basing on FWMI could be employed in the marine remote sensing with a high accuracy.
KEYWORDS: Optical filters, LIDAR, Atmospheric modeling, Transmittance, Aerosols, Monte Carlo methods, Signal to noise ratio, Electronic filtering, Backscatter, Atmospheric particles
As already known commonly, high-spectral-resolution lidar technique (HSRL) employs a narrowband spectroscopic filter to separate the elastic backscattered aerosol signal from the thermal Doppler broadened molecular backscattered contribution. This paper presents a new and comprehensive view of HSRL technique from the perspective of spectral discrimination, without concretizing the analysis into a specific spectral discrimination filter. Based on a general HSRL layout with three-channel configuration, a theoretical model of retrieval error evaluation is introduced. In this model, we only take the error sources related to the spectral discrimination parameters into account, and ignore other error sources not associated with these focused parameters. This theoretical model is subsequently verified by Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. Both the model and MC simulations demonstrate that a large molecular transmittance and a large spectral discrimination ratio (SDR, i.e., ratio of the molecular transmittance to the aerosol transmittance) are beneficial to reduce the retrieval error. Moreover, we find that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and SDR of the lidar system are often tradeoffs, and we suggest considering a suitable SDR for higher molecular transmittance (thus higher SNR) instead of using unnecessarily high SDR when designing the spectral discrimination filter. This view interprets the function of the narrowband spectroscopic filter in HSRL system essentially, and will provide some general guidelines for the reasonable design of the spectral discrimination filter for HSRL community.
A polarized high-spectral-resolution lidar (HSRL) based on a field-widened Michelson interferometer (FWMI) is developed in Zhejiang University, China, which is intended to profile various atmospheric aerosol optical properties simultaneously, such as the backscatter coefficient, the extinction coefficient, depolarization ratio, lidar ratio, etc. Due to the enlarged field-of-view (FOV) of the FWMI spectroscopic filter compared with the conventional Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) filter, we can expand the angular acceptable angle of the HSRL system to about 1 degree yet without any degradation of the spectral discrimination, enhancing the photon efficiency considerably. In this paper, we describe the developed FWMI-based polarized HSRL system comprehensively. The instrument configuration parameters and overall systematic structure are first presented. Then the FWMI subsystem, as the core apparatus of this HSRL, is particularly focused on. Instrumental calibration approach and the data retrieval are also discussed in detail. To our knowledge, this HSRL system is the first new generation of lidar which employs the FWMI spectroscopic filter in China, and great potential will be shown with the gradually improved engineering design in near future.
We propose and develop a field-widened Michelson interferometer (FWMI) system to act as a new type of spectroscopic filter in HSRL application. Due to the field widening characteristic, the FWMI can allow relatively large off-axis incident angle, and can be designed to any desirable wavelength. The theoretical foundations of the FWMI are introduced in this paper, and the developed prototype interferometer is described. It consists of a solid arm made of the glass H-ZF52 with the dimension of 37.876 mm, and an air gap with the length of 20.382 mm. These two interference arms are connected to a cube beam splitter to constitute a Michelson interferometer. Due to the matched dimensions and refractive indices of the two arms, the experimental testing results show that the OPD variation of the developed FWMI is about 0.04 lambda and the RMS is less than 0.008 lambda when the incident angle is as much as 1.5 degree (half angle). The cumulative wavefront distortion caused by the FWMI is less than 0.1 lambda PV value and 0.02 lambda RMS value. To lock the filtering frequency of the FWMI to the laser transmitter, a frequency locking system, which is actually an electro-optic feedback loop, is established. The setup and principle of this frequency locking system are also described in detail. Good locking accuracy of the FWMI about 27MHz is demonstrated through the frequency locking technique. All these results validate the feasibility of this developed FWMI system as a spectroscopic filter of an HSRL.
High-spectral-resolution lidars (HSRLs) are increasingly being developed for atmospheric aerosol remote sensing applications due to the straightforward and independent retrieval of aerosol optical properties without reliance on assumptions about lidar ratio. In HSRL technique, spectral discrimination between scattering from molecules and aerosol particles is one of the most critical processes, which needs to be accomplished by means of a narrowband spectroscopic filter. To ensure a high retrieval accuracy of an HSRL system, the high-quality design of its spectral discrimination filter should be made. This paper reviews the available algorithms that were proposed for HSRLs and makes a general accuracy analysis of the HSRL technique focused on the spectral discrimination, in order to provide heuristic guidelines for the reasonable design of the spectral discrimination filter. We introduce a theoretical model for retrieval error evaluation of an HSRL instrument with general three-channel configuration. Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are performed to validate the correctness of the theoretical model. Results from both the model and MC simulations agree very well, and they illustrate one important, although not well realized fact: a large molecular transmittance and a large spectral discrimination ratio (SDR, i.e., ratio of the molecular transmittance to the aerosol transmittance) are beneficial t o promote the retrieval accuracy. The application of the conclusions obtained in this paper in the designing of a new type of spectroscopic filter, that is, the field-widened Michelson interferometer, is illustrated in detail. These works are with certain universality and expected to be useful guidelines for HSRL community, especially when choosing or designing the spectral discrimination filter.
A pattern recognition model for aerosol classification with atmospheric backscatter lidars is proposed and studied in detail. The theoretical framework and the implementation process of the proposed model are presented. Computer simulations have been carried out to verify the practicability and robustness of this model. The k-fold cross-validation method is employed in the process of classifier designing to choose the proper decision rule, which is mainly based on statistical pattern recognition theory. At the same time, the validity of the model is evaluated. The generalized self-validation is also carried out in the computer simulations to verify the stability of the model. The analysis of the performances in reduced status, especially the instance of application to Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization, demonstrates the generalization ability and performance of this model.
One of the pivotal challenges in high spectral resolution lidars (HSRLs) is the spectral discrimination process, which brings about more straightforward and accurate retrieval without a priori assumptions in contrast to standard backscatter lidars. Inteferometric filters such as Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) has shown great convenience for spectrally separating the Rayleigh and Mie scattered elements in HSRL returned signals. Based on interference of two incident beams, the field -widen Michelson interferometer (FWMI) may be also the same potential in this application as FPI in spite of some performance differences. In this paper, we concentrate on the performance comparisons of FWMI with FPI as spectroscopic filter in HSRL from the inspections of spectral discrimination characteristic, field of view (FOV) tolerance, the efficiency of power collection, etc. All these analytical comparisons are quantificational and will be beneficial to reasonable choice among the two optical filters for HSRL. The results indicate that in spite of a litter lower transmittance when processing the radiation with very small divergence and more rigorous tolerance for temperature stability and surface flatness compared with FPI, FWMI is still very competent in this spectral filtering process for its remarkable spectral discrimination characteristic and efficient photons collective ability which attributes to its field widen design and intrinsically outstanding spectral separation performance.
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