Performance Evaluation of the Optical Crosswind Profiler

摘要

Field measurements of integrated path crosswinds were made at Biggs Optical Range, Biggs Army Airfield, Fort Bliss, Texas, during the period of 31 january to 8 March 1978. The measurements were made with the Optical Crosswind Profiler (OCP), a bistatic system that measures crosswinds at six locations along its path by detecting and analyzing the movement of atmospheric scintillations. This report describes the performance evaluation test, test support equipment, and data collection methodology. Data collected with this sensor were compared to integrated path wind averages measured by the calibrated anemometer array. This report presents X-Y scatter plots, derived weighting functions, and wind measurement comparison plots. Results of this test showed that the alignment procedure is lengthy and tedious. Furthermore, simultaneous alignment of the six OCP sensors is very difficult to attain. However, once a sensor is aligned at 500 m, wind velocity values measured with it fall within 8 percent of the values obtained from the calibrated anemometr array. Operation at 2000 m is not reliable due to difficulties in obtaining and retaining alignment. (Author)