Design and fabrication of a compact lidar telescope

Anees Ahmad; Farzin Amzajerdian; Chen Feng; Ye Li

doi:10.1117/12.258884

21 November 1996 Design and fabrication of a compact lidar telescope

Anees Ahmad, Farzin Amzajerdian, Chen Feng, Ye Li

Proceedings Volume 2832, Optical Instruments for Weather Forecasting; (1996) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.258884
Event: SPIE's 1996 International Symposium on Optical Science, Engineering, and Instrumentation, 1996, Denver, CO, United States

Abstract

A prototype compact off-axis reflective lidar telescope has been designed and fabricated for remote sensing of atmospheric winds from space and airborne platforms. The 250 mm aperture telescope consists of two mirrors and a collimating lens to achieve a very compact size, without any central obscuration.It has no internal focal point to prevent air breakdown, and the pupil relay optics has also been eliminated. This paper presents the results of optical design and sensitivity analysis along with the predicted performance. The major design issues for lidar systems, particularly the one that utilizes coherent detection for higher sensitivity and Doppler frequency extraction, are the wavefront quality, polarization purity, and a minimum backscattering off the reflective surfaces. These design issues along with the other optical characteristics of this lidar telescope are presented. The effect on the wavefront quality of the tilt, decentration and axial spacing tolerances for the mirrors, collimating lens and quarter wave plate is discussed.

Citation Download Citation

Anees Ahmad, Farzin Amzajerdian, Chen Feng, and Ye Li "Design and fabrication of a compact lidar telescope", Proc. SPIE 2832, Optical Instruments for Weather Forecasting, (21 November 1996); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.258884

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