Imaging Bistatic Lidar Technique for Upper Atmosphere Studies

The structural characteristics of the sodium layer are of considerable interest in the study of mesosphere dynamics. Much of the past and current research of the sodium layer have made use of monostatic lidar measurements to study these characteristics. An alternate approach is to use a bistatic lidar configuration, consisting of a cw laser to illuminate the sodium layer, and an imaging system to record the laser spot created by the resonant sodium scattering. The basic idea is to infer the structural characteristics of the layer from selected profiles of the imaged laser spot.