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Dugway Proving Grounds (DPG) plays a key role in the open-air field-testing of systems used in defense against chemical and biological threats. The performance of systems under test are benchmarked against a suite of wellcharacterized point and standoff instrumentation. Elastic-backscatter lidar systems with large power-apertures operating at 1.06 μm provide standoff detection, quantification, and location of aerosol plumes. The accuracy and sensitivity these systems provide comes at the cost of a large NOHD (>5 km) which limits their utility. To this end, Space Dynamics Lab (SDL) developed an eye-safe system following system requirements from DPG. The system provides a standoff capability for field tests where a NOHZ and required PPE would be an undue burden. CELiS (Compact Eye-Safe Lidar System) is an elastic-backscatter lidar that operates at 1.57 μm, using a commercial 30 Hz Nd:YAG laser and OPO combination. The short pulse length and low repetition rate give the system an advantage in range resolution and daytime operation over a similarly sized system based on a fiber laser. CELiS uses LidarView, an SDL-developed lidar display package, for data acquisition and hardware control. The Joint Ambient Breeze Tunnel (JABT) is used to perform calibration and sensitivity measurements of the various lidar systems at DPG. The JABT provides confinement of an aerosol plume and allows for comparison of TSI APS (Aerodynamic Particle Sizer) concentrations to the lidar backscatter values over an extended period. CELiS was used to support a recent JABT test and the data analysis and performance results from the test are described.
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