Mobile incoherent Doppler lidar using fiber-based lidar receivers

A mobile incoherent Doppler lidar was developed at the University of Science and Technology of China. The lidar consists of three subsystems. All subsystems are designed based on the well-proven double-edge technique, operate at 354.7 nm, and use Fabry-Perot etalons as frequency discriminators. The whole system is designed for wind measurement from 15- to 60-km height. In order to make the lidar receiver more compact and stable and to reduce interference between optical paths inside the receiver box, fiber splitters are introduced into the lidar receivers as a substitute for normally used discrete components. According to the stability of the splitter, the wind error dominated by the splitting ratio would be <0.49 m/s. To reduce luminance heterogeneity's influence on the splitter performance, an integrating sphere is used in the system. Multiple measurements of transmission curves have a maximum mean squared error of 9.674E - 5. A typical result of wind profile is also given to help demonstrate the reliability of the lidar and the fiber-based receiver. c 2014 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)