Monitoring the statistics of turbulence: Fried parameter estimation from the wavefront sensor measurements

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-10-2011

Abstract

Near-the-ground laser communication systems must operate in the presence of strong atmospheric turbulence. The effects of atmospheric turbulence on the laser beam that are relevant to optical communications are a broadening of the laser footprint, random jitter of the laser beam, and high spatial frequency intensity fluctuations referred to as scintillation. The overall goal of our program is to improve the performance and extend the range of optical communications systems by exploring the use of adaptive optics and channel coding. Knowledge of the turbulence conditions and the ability to describe its properties are the key aspects to make these improvements effective. The developed multiphase approach is directed to statistically describe atmospheric turbulence based on results derived from experimentally collected data. Statistics of Fried parameter r0 is derived from 6 TB of data collected over 50days, and under various day and night atmospheric conditions. Significant fluctuations of r0 are found with the values ranging from 2mm and up to 15cm, corresponding to the significant structure function C 2n fluctuations from 7:4 ×10-14 to 8:1 ×10-16. © 2011 Optical Society of America.

Publication Title

Applied Optics

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