Laser Reflectance as a Function of Rough Water Glitter Profile

Abstract

A new remote sensing technique was developed for predicting the expected mean laser radar return from a rough water surface. This technique involved measuring the standard deviations of the upwind and crosswind profiles of the elliptical glitter patterns occurring for illumination of the water surface with a point source near thelaser radar system. A pencil beam laser radar from a companion project simulataneously measured the reflected signals from the water surface. The glitter pattern images were recorded with a video camera and recorder. The images for each run were later digitized along theri major and minor elliptic asxed and averaged over 256 images to produced smooth intensity curvers from which the standard deviations were measured. The radar returen fluctuated over a large range becasue of the rapid variation of individual water surface facets, and so was recorded and time averaged voer the sam interval as the video images. Data sufficient for empirical preduciton of expected mean laser return signal were obtained. This is necessary to permit evaluation of the performance of a given laser radar design. The data obtained als approximated the predictions of a new model proposed in this work.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1987
Accession Number
ADA178774

Entities

People

  • Carlton M. Bourne

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Cameras
  • Classification
  • Computer Programs
  • Detectors
  • Lasers
  • Light Sources
  • Measurement
  • Optical Properties
  • Optics
  • Pencil Beams
  • Recording Systems
  • Reflectance
  • Remote Sensing
  • Video Cameras
  • Video Images
  • Video Recording
  • Waveforms

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Computer Vision.
  • Environmental Engineering
  • Radar Systems Engineering.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy