Karl Reithmaier

Development of a Pulsed 2-Micron Integrated Path Differential Absorption Lidar for CO2 Measurement

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important greenhouse gas that significantly contributes to the carbon cycle and global radiation budget on Earth. Active remote sensing of CO2 is important to address several limitations that contend with passive sensors. A 2-micron double-pulsed, Integrated Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) lidar instrument for ground and airborne atmospheric CO2 concentration measurements via direct detection method is being developed at NASA Langley Research Center. This active remote sensing instrument will provide an alternate approach of measuring atmospheric CO2 concentrations with significant advantages. A high energy pulsed approach provides high-precision measurement capability by having high signal-to-noise ratio level and unambiguously eliminates the contamination from aerosols and clouds that can bias the IPDA measurement. Commercial, on the shelf, components are implemented for the detection system. Instrument integration will be presented in this paper as well as a background for CO2 measurement at NASA Langley research Center.

An Airborne 2-μm Double-Pulsed Direct-Detection Lidar Instrument for Atmospheric CO2 Column Measurements

AbstractThis study reports airborne measurements of atmospheric CO2 column density using a 2-μm double-pulsed integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar. This new 2-μm IPDA lidar offers an alternative approach to measure CO2 column density with unique features. The online frequencies of this lidar can be tuned to 1–6 GHz from the CO2 R30 absorption line peak. It provides high measurement sensitivity to the lower-tropospheric CO2 near the ground surface. This instrument was flown in the spring of 2014 in a NASA B200 aircraft. The results of these test flights clearly demonstrate the measurement capabilities of this lidar instrument. The CO2 column dry mixing ratio is compared to an in situ CO2 measurement by a collocated NOAA flight. The IPDA lidar measurement is determined to be in good agreement with a 0.36% difference, which corresponds to 1.48 ppm. It is the average difference between the IPDA lidar measurements and the NOAA air samples in the flight altitudes from 3 to 6.1 km.

Airborne 2-micron double-pulsed integrated path differential absorption lidar for column CO2 measurement

Double-pulse 2-micron lasers have been demonstrated with energy as high as 600 mJ and up to 10 Hz repetition rate. The two laser pulses are separated by 200 µs and can be tuned and locked separately. Applying double-pulse laser in DIAL system enhances the CO2 measurement capability by increasing the overlap of the sampled volume between the on-line and off-line. To avoid detection complicity, integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar provides higher signal-to-noise ratio measurement compared to conventional range-resolved DIAL. Rather than weak atmospheric scattering returns, IPDA rely on the much stronger hard target returns that is best suited for airborne platforms. In addition, the IPDA technique measures the total integrated column content from the instrument to the hard target but with weighting that can be tuned by the transmitter. Therefore, the transmitter could be tuned to weight the column measurement to the surface for optimum CO2 interaction studies or up to the free troposphere for optimum transport studies. Currently, NASA LaRC is developing and integrating a double-Pulsed 2-µm direct detection IPDA lidar for CO2 column measurement from an airborne platform. The presentation will describe the development of the 2-μm IPDA lidar system and present the airborne measurement of column CO2 and will compare to in-situ measurement for various ground target of different reflectivity.

Airborne, direct-detection, 2-um triple-pulse IPDA lidar for simultaneous and independent atmospheric water vapor and carbon dioxide active remote sensing

Atmospheric water vapor and carbon dioxide are important greenhouse gases that significantly contribute to the global radiation budget on Earth. A 2-micron triple-pulse, Integrated Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) lidar instrument for ground and airborne atmospheric carbon dioxide and water vapor concentration measurements using direct detection was developed at NASA Langley Research Center. This active remote sensing instrument provides an alternate approach with significant advantages for measuring atmospheric concentrations of the gases. A high energy pulsed laser transmitter approach coupled with sensitive receiver detection provides a high-precision measurement capability by having a high signal-to-noise ratio. This paper presents the concept, development, integration and testing of the 2-micron triple-pulse IPDA. The integration includes the various IPDA transmitter, receiver and data acquisition subsystems and components. Ground and airborne testing indicated successful operation of the IPDA lidar.

Progress on Development of an Airborne Two-Micron IPDA Lidar for Water Vapor and Carbon Dioxide Column Measurements

An airborne 2-μm triple-pulse integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar is currently under development at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). This lidar targets both atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O) column measurements, simultaneously. Advancements in the development of this IPDA lidar are presented in this paper. Updates on advanced two-micron triple-pulse high-energy laser transmitter will be given including packaging and lidar integration status. In addition, receiver development updates will also be presented. This includes a state-of-the-art detection system integrated at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This detection system is based on a newly developed HgCdTe (MCT) electron-initiated avalanche photodiode (e-APD) array. Future plan for IPDA lidar system for ground integration, testing and flight validation will be discussed.

Development of Double and Triple-Pulsed 2-micron IPDA Lidars for Column CO2 Measurements

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important greenhouse gas that significantly contributes to the carbon cycle and global radiation budget on Earth. CO2 role on Earth’s climate is complicated due to different interactions with various climate components that include the atmosphere, the biosphere and the hydrosphere. Although extensive worldwide efforts for monitoring atmospheric CO2 through various techniques, including in-situ and passive sensors, are taking place high uncertainties exist in quantifying CO2 sources and sinks. These uncertainties are mainly due to insufficient spatial and temporal mapping of the gas. Therefore it is required to have more rapid and accurate CO2 monitoring with higher uniform coverage and higher resolution. CO2 DIAL operating in the 2-μm band offer better near-surface CO2 measurement sensitivity due to the intrinsically stronger absorption lines. For more than 15 years, NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) contributed in developing several 2-μm CO2 DIAL systems and technologies. This paper focuses on the current development of the airborne double-pulsed and triple-pulsed 2-μm CO2 integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar system at NASA LaRC. This includes the IPDA system development and integration. Results from ground and airborne CO2 IPDA testing will be presented. The potential of scaling such technology to a space mission will be addressed.

2.5 MHz line-width high-energy, 2μm coherent wind lidar transmitter

The design of a diode pumped, injection seeded MOPA with a transform limited line width and diffraction limited beam quality is presented. This lidar transmitter produces over 300mJ energy at 10 Hz repetition rate.