Abstract

The spatial resolution and precision of atmospheric LIDAR systems are ultimately limited by the time resolution of the detecting system and the duration of the pulses transmitted. In the presence of clouds, fog, and aerosols scattering can introduce multiple path effects which can seriously degrade system performance. Both a loss in longitudinal spatial resolution due to temporal stretching of the received pulses and loss of precision due to enhanced delay result from multiple paths. In addition lateral resolution is degraded due to beam spreading and the signal to noise ratio decreased by the attenuation due to scattering.

© 1983 Optical Society of America