Modeling off-axis laser scattering: effects from aerosol distributions

The detection and characterization of a laser by an off-axis receiver has been demonstrated and has been modeled to varying degrees of complexity and application. Within these models, many factors contribute to the received intensity at an off-axis receiver, but none is more important than the aerosol distribution; it is the aerosols that are the primary scatterers. Here the dependency of off-axis scattering on the type of aerosol distribution used is explored and the relative importance of this distribution in different geometries is evaluated. The effort uses a single-scatter off-axis model to simulate the received intensity at an off-axis sensor for the inter-comparisons.