δk-lidar sensing of the ocean surface

Abstract

Ak-lidar is a new remote sensing method for the ocean surface that is capable of measuring directional wave spectra from wavelengths of a few millimeters to over a meter and surface currents with accuracies of better than 5 cm/sec and spatial resolutions less than 10 meters. Ak-lidar is analogous to Ak-radar [l] but has several advantages over Ak-radar. Among the most important of these is a large increase in signal-noise-ratio (SNR) under conltions where speckle (referred to as clutter for Ak-radar) dominates the noise background. This is due to the ability of Ak-lidar to average many speckle correlation zones over the receiving aperture. Ak-lidar also has finer spatial and temporal resolution of surface waves than Ak-radar and is potentially a more compact system. This paper summarizes the basic theory for Ak-lidar and describes the first laboratory demonstration of the method.