Double-pass fade statistics of a laser beam under moderate to strong atmospheric turbulence

Ammar Al-Habash; Larry C. Andrews; Ronald L. Phillips

doi:10.1117/12.430787

20 June 2001 Double-pass fade statistics of a laser beam under moderate to strong atmospheric turbulence

Ammar Al-Habash, Larry C. Andrews, Ronald L. Phillips

Proceedings Volume 4272, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XIII; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.430787
Event: Photonics West 2001 - LASE, 2001, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

For a Gaussian-beam wave incident on a point target, we use a recently developed scintillation theory and the gamma- gamma probability density function to calculate the fade statistics of the echo wave as a function of threshold below the mean irradiance. We also compare the results with experimental data collected by a coherent receiver array over a 1-km propagation path to the target using from one to eight apertures of the array. The propagation channel was determined to be a bistatic configuration for the lidar system. Values of inner scale and refractive index structure constant were simultaneously measured during the experiment by use of a scintillometer instrument. The scintillation theory employed in this work utilizes a spatial filter function that results from adapting a modulation scheme in which it is assumed that the intensity of the propagating laser beam is a product of two quantities: one related to the large scale turbulent eddies of the atmosphere and the other related to the small scale eddies. The theoretical curves arising from this analysis provide a good fit with experimental data up to four active apertures of the array, but deviate somewhat from the data for a greater number of apertures.

Citation Download Citation

Ammar Al-Habash, Larry C. Andrews, and Ronald L. Phillips "Double-pass fade statistics of a laser beam under moderate to strong atmospheric turbulence", Proc. SPIE 4272, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XIII, (20 June 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.430787

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