The first aircraft experiment with the Wide-Angle Airborne Laser Ranging System has been conducted in May 1998 over an air base in France equipped with a network of 64 cub-corner retroreflectors. The ranging system was operated from the Avion de Recherche Atmospherique et de Teledetection of CNES/IGN/INSU. Data have been collected during two 4-hour flights. The paper describes the data processing methods and presents the first experimental results. The precision is of 2 cm on the difference of vertical coordinates from two sets of 3 X 103 distance measurements, which is consistent with simulations and a posteriori covariance. The precision is mainly limited by the smallness of the number of efficient measurements remaining after a drastic data sorting for outliers. Higher precision is expected for future experiments after some instrumental improvements (achieving higher link budget) and measurement of aircraft attitude during the flight.
First aircraft experiment results with the wide-angle airborne laser ranging system
Laser Radar Ranging and Atmospheric Lidar Techniques II ; 1999 ; Florence,Italy
Proc. SPIE ; 3865 ; 43
1999-12-15
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
First aircraft experiment results with the wide-angle airborne laser ranging system [3865-32]
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