Abstract

The inversion of lidar returns from homogeneous atmospheres has been done customarily through the well-known slope method. The logarithmic operation over the range-corrected and system-normalized received signal used in this method introduces a bias in the statistics of the noise-affected processed signal that can severely distort the estimates of the atmospheric attenuation and backscatter coefficients under measurement. It is shown that a fitting of the theoretically expected exponential signal to the range-corrected received one, using as the initial guess the results provided by the slope method and a least-squares iterative procedure, can yield enhanced accuracy under low signal-to-noise ratios and especially in moderate-to-high extinction conditions.

© 1998 Optical Society of America

Statistics of the slope-method estimator

Francesc Rocadenbosch, Adolfo Comerón, and Lorena Albiol
Appl. Opt. 39(33) 6049-6057 (2000)

Adaptive filter solution for processing lidar returns: optical parameter estimation

Francesc Rocadenbosch, Gregori Vázquez, and Adolfo Comerón
Appl. Opt. 37(30) 7019-7034 (1998)

Iterative method for the inversion of multiwavelength lidar signals to determine aerosol size distribution

K. Rajeev and K. Parameswaran
Appl. Opt. 37(21) 4690-4700 (1998)

Lidar inversion of atmospheric backscatter and extinction-to-backscatter ratios by use of a Kalman filter

Francesc Rocadenbosch, Cecilia Soriano, Adolfo Comerón, and José-María Baldasano
Appl. Opt. 38(15) 3175-3189 (1999)

Inversion of lidar signals with the slope method

Gerard J. Kunz and Gerrit de Leeuw
Appl. Opt. 32(18) 3249-3256 (1993)