Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “doppler lidar”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 523 records · Page 29

Profiling Tropospheric Winds with the Goddard Lidar Observatory for Winds (GLOW)

The Goddard Lidar Observatory for Winds (GLOW) is a mobile direct detection Doppler lidar system designed to measure wind profiles from the surface into the lower stratosphere. Recently, the GLOW lidar has participated in several field deployments measuring tropospheric winds in a variety of conditions including both daytime and night operation. More than 50 hours of line-of-sight wind profit data were obtained in September, 2000 during a three week intercomparison experiment at the Ground Winds facility in North Glen, NH. Typical clear air lidar wind profiles extended to altitudes of 20 km with a 1 km vertical resolution and 1 minute averaging. An additional 40 hours of lidar profiles of wind speed and direction were obtained during HARGLO-2, an intercomparison experiment held at Wallops Flight Facility, VA in November, 2001. A description of the mobile system is presented along with the examples of validated lidar wind profiles obtained during these experiments.

Gentry, Bruce M.↗

Pulsed Lidar Performance/Technical Maturity Assessment

This report describes the results of investigations performed by the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) under a task entitled 'Pulsed Lidar Performance/Technical Maturity Assessment' funded by the Crew Systems Branch of the Airborne Systems Competency at the NASA Langley Research Center. The investigations included two tasks, 1.1(a) and 1.1(b). The Tasks discussed in this report are in support of the NASA Virtual Airspace Modeling and Simulation (VAMS) program and are designed to evaluate a pulsed lidar that will be required for active wake vortex avoidance solutions. The Coherent Technologies, Inc. (CTI) WindTracer LIDAR is an eye-safe, 2-micron, coherent, pulsed Doppler lidar with wake tracking capability. The actual performance of the WindTracer system was to be quantified. In addition, the sensor performance has been assessed and modeled, and the models have been included in simulation efforts. The WindTracer LIDAR was purchased by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for use in near-term field data collection efforts as part of a joint NASA/FAA wake vortex research program. In the joint research program, a minimum common wake and weather data collection platform will be defined. NASA Langley will use the field data to support wake model development and operational concept investigation in support of the VAMS project, where the ultimate goal is to improve airport capacity and safety. Task 1.1(a), performed by NCAR in Boulder, Colorado to analyze the lidar system to determine its performance and capabilities based on results from simulated lidar data with analytic wake vortex models provided by NASA, which were then compared to the vendor's claims for the operational specifications of the lidar. Task 1.1(a) is described in Section 3, including the vortex model, lidar parameters and simulations, and results for both detection and tracking of wake vortices generated by Boeing 737s and 747s. Task 1.1(b) was performed by GTRI in Atlanta, Georgia and is described in Section 4. Task 1.1(b) includes a description of the St. Louis Airport (STL) field test being conducted by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, and it also addresses the development of a test plan to validate simulation studies conducted as part of Task 1.1(a). Section 4.2 provides a description of the Volpe STL field tests, and Section 4.3 describes 3 possible ways to validate the WindTracer lidar simulations performed in Task 1.1(a).

Gimmestad, Gary G.↗

NASA SPLICE Project: Development and Testing of Precision Landing GN&C Technologies

NASA's technology advancement needs for entry, descent and landing call for high-precision, high-rate sensors that can improve navigation accuracy and vehicle control performance. Higher landing accuracy is required for any future human lander missions, and likely, for most robotic missions 1,2. Sensors and algorithms that significantly reduce navigation errors and can image the local terrain will enable landing at locations of high scientific interest that would otherwise pose significant risk to the vehicle. The Safe and Precise Landing-Integrated Capabilities Evolution project, or SPLICE, is developing precision landing and hazard avoidance (PL&HA) technologies for NASA and for potential commercial space flight missions. SPLICE technologies include sensors, algorithms, advanced space flight computing capabilities, and simulation tools used to integrate and study guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) system performance. SPLICE efforts include hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) simulation testing, ground testing, and flight testing, including reuse of hardware from the CoOperative Blending of Autonomous Landing Technologies (COBALT) suborbital flight-test payload3,4. Two of the precise navigation sensors that are being developed and matured within SPLICE are LiDARs. Since 2006, NASA Langley has been developing a Navigation Doppler LiDAR (NDL) for precise velocity measurements, and SPLICE is building an NDL engineering test unit (ETU) that will be brought up to TRL 6 following environmental and high-speed1,2 testing. NASA Goddard is developing a Hazard Detection LiDAR (HD LiDAR) engineering development unit (EDU) for SPLICE that has relevance to future human and robotic lander missions. The HD LiDAR will be flight test and matured to TRL 5.

Restrepo, Carolina I.↗

Safe and Precise Landing Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) Imagery of Sensors

Collection of imagery of SPLICE hardware and software visualization. Descent Landing Computer ETU Open Frame Chassis (OFC). ETU pictures of the GSFC Hazard Detection Lidar during assembly. Prototype picture of the delivered Psionic Navigation Doppler Lidar, including testing with a three-dimensional mobile target. Visualization of a lunar lander simulation using the Dual Quaternion Guidance, demonstrating pointing of a mounted hazard lidar, and then diverting to a selected safe site.

Guidance Navigation and Control↗

Wind Profiling With the Airborne Doppler Aerosol Wind Lidar During the 2022 Convective Processes Experiment

The 2017 Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space (ESAS 2017) identifies a critical need for improving our understanding of Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) processes and air-surface fluxes as well as why clouds, convection, and heavy precipitation occur when and where they do. Lidars are uniquely capable of collecting high precision and high spatio-temporal observations that have been used for atmospheric process studies from the ground, aircraft, and space. The wind lidar team at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) started the development of Doppler wind lidar more than a decade ago to demonstrate technologies required for an Earth-orbiting system to globally measure wind profiles. Since then, an airborne Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) lidar system has been developed and participated in a series of field campaigns. The Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) lidar uses atmospheric aerosol motion to derive vertical profiles of horizontal wind speed and direction beneath the aircraft. In September 2022, DAWN, along with a suite of other instruments, was flown on a NASA DC-8 as part of The Convective Processes EXperiment – Cabo Verde (CPEX-CV) field campaign. A main objective of CPEX was to obtain a comprehensive set of temperature, humidity and, particularly, wind observations over tropical waters in undisturbed conditions, Saharan dust outbreaks, and in the vicinity of scattered through organized deep convection in all phases of the convective life cycle. DAWN collected data for approximately 90 hours across 13 CPEX-CV science flights. Airborne Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) dropsondes were dropped throughout the flight for profiling the atmosphere and validating the DAWN instrument. DAWN had co-located data with 347 AVAPS NRD41 dropsondes, providing 32,117 vertical levels for a comprehensive validation of DAWN wind retrievals. DAWN showed very good agreement with dropsondes of ~0.2 m/s bias and ~1.8 m/s RMS. Given this agreement, DAWN is considered to be a worthy reference dataset, and its retrievals have been compared to winds derived from GOES Atmospheric Motion Vectors (AMVs), Advanced Scatterometer winds (ASCAT), and model data from GFS, GEOS, and MERRA-2 to better understand the quality of our current models and satellite wind observations. The proposed presentation will provide a brief description of the DAWN instrument, discuss the synergistic observations collected across a wide range of atmospheric conditions sampled during the CPEX-CV flights, and a summary of comparisons between DAWN, GOES AMV, ASCAT, and model analyses/predictions, with an emphasis on the PBL.

DAWN↗

Offshore Wind Measurements Using Doppler Aerosol Wind Lidar (DAWN) at NASA Langley Research Center

The latest flight demonstration of Doppler Aerosol Wind Lidar (DAWN) at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) is presented. The goal of the campaign was to demonstrate the improvement of DAWN system since the previous flight campaign in 2012 and the capabilities of DAWN and the latest airborne wind profiling algorithm APOLO (Airborne Wind Profiling Algorithm for Doppler Wind Lidar) developed at LaRC. The comparisons of APOLO and another algorithm are discussed utilizing two and five line-of-sights (LOSs), respectively. Wind parameters from DAWN were compared with ground-based radar measurements for validation purposes. The campaign period was June - July in 2013 and the flight altitude was 8 km in inland toward Charlotte, NC, and offshores in Virginia Beach, VA and Ocean City, MD. The DAWN system was integrated into a UC12B with two operators onboard during the campaign.

Beyon, Jeffrey Y.↗

Site Rolling Meadows Golf Course - CLAMPS 1 Lidar / Raw Data

This dataset contains raw data from the CLAMPS 1 Halo Photonics StreamLine Doppler Lidar at the Rolling Meadows Golf Course site. CLAMPS 1 deployed during fall-winter 2022 (10/3/22-12/27/23) and summer-fall 2023 (6/16/23-10/1/23).

17 WIND ENERGY↗

ARM Site E36 - CLAMPS 2 Lidar / Raw Data

This dataset contains raw data from the CLAMPS 2 Halo Photonics StreamLine Doppler Lidar at the Rolling Meadows Golf Course site. CLAMPS 2 deployed during fall-winter 2022 (10/3/22-12/27/23) and summer-fall 2023 (6/16/23-10/1/23).

17 WIND ENERGY↗

YAG aerosol lidar

The Global Atmospheric Backscatter Experiment (GLOBE) Mission, using the NASA DC-8 aircraft platform, is designed to provide the magnitude and statistical distribution of atmospheric backscatter cross section at lidar operating wavelengths. This is a fundamental parameter required for the Doppler lidar proposed to be used on a spacecraft platform for global wind field measurements. The prime measurements will be made by a CO2 lidar instrument in the 9 to 10 micron range. These measurements will be complemented with the Goddard YAG Aerosol Lidar (YAL) data in two wavelengths, 0.532 and 1.06 micron, in the visible and near-infrared. The YAL, is being designed to utilize as much existing hardware, as feasible, to minimize cost and reduce implementation time. The laser, energy monitor, telescope and detector package will be mounted on an optical breadboard. The optical breadboard is mounted through isolation mounts between two low boy racks. The detector package will utilize a photomultiplier tube for the 0.532 micron channel and a silicon avalanche photo detector (APD) for the 1.06 micron channel.

Sullivan, R.↗