Stephen M. Doss-Hammel

The RED Experiment: An Assessment of Boundary Layer Effects in a Trade Winds Regime on Microwave and Infrared Propagation over the Sea

The Rough Evaporation Duct (RED) experiment was performed off of the Hawaiian Island of Oahu from late August to mid-September 2001 to test the hypothesis that a rough sea surface modifies the evaporation duct. Two land sites were instrumented, one with microwave receivers and the other with an infrared receiver. Two bouys were deployed, a small boat was instrumented and two aircrafts flew various tracks to sense both sea and atmospheric conditions. It was observed that waves do modify the scalars within the air-sea surface layer. There was a lack of agreement of the scalar profile constants and those typically observed over land. Furthermore, evidence was obtained indicating that the Monin-Obukhov similarity theory, combined with high-quality meteorological measurements, can be used by propagation models to accurately predict microwave signal levels.

Status and developments in EOSTAR, a model to predict IR sensor performance in the marine environment

The application of long-range infrared observation systems is challenging, especially with the currently available high spatial resolution infrared camera systems with resolutions comparable with their visual counterparts. As a result of these developments, the obtained infrared images are no longer limited by the quality of system but by atmospheric effects instead. For instance, atmospheric transmission losses and path radiance reduce the contrast of objects in the background and optical turbulence limits the spatial resolution in the images. Furthermore, severe image distortion can occur due to atmospheric refraction, which limits the detection and identification of objects at larger range. EOSTAR is a computer program under development to estimate these atmospheric effects using standard meteorological parameters and the properties of the sensor. Tools are provided to design targets and to calculate their infrared signature as a function of range, aspect angle, and weather condition. Possible applications of EOSTAR include mission planning, sensor evaluation and selection, and education. The user interface of EOSTAR is fully mouse-controlled, and the code runs on a standard Windows-based PC. Many features of EOSTAR execute almost instantaneous, which results in a user friendly code. Its modular setup allows its configuration to specific user needs and provides a flexible output structure.

EOSTAR: an electro-optical sensor performance model for predicting atmospheric refraction, turbulence, and transmission in the marine surface layer

A first version of the integrated model EOSTAR (Electro-Optical Signal Transmission and Ranging) to predict the performance of electro-optical (EO) sensor systems in the marine atmospheric surface layer has been developed. The model allows the user to define camera systems, atmospheric conditions and target characteristics, and it uses standard (shipboard) meteorological data to calculate atmospheric effects such as refraction, turbulence, spectrally resolved transmission, path- and background radiation. Alternatively, the user may specify vertical profiles of meteorological parameters and/or profiles of atmospheric refraction, either interactively or in data files with a flexible format. Atmospheric effects can be presented both numerically and graphically as distorted images of synthetically generated targets with spatially distributed emission properties. EOSTAR is a completely mouse-driven PC Windows program with a user-friendly interface and extended help files. Most calculations are performed in real-time, although spectral transmission and background radiation calculations take up to a few seconds for each new meteorological condition. The program can be used in a wide range of applications, e.g., for operational planning and instruction.

A comparison of optical turbulence models

The U.S. Navy has an interest in the use of laser systems for surface ships. Such systems must operate within a thin near-surface environment called the marine atmospheric surface layer. There exist substantial gradients in temperature and momentum within this layer which make turbulence a strong function of height. We are interested in robust and simple optical turbulence models that can be used to predict turbulence along near-horizontal paths. We discuss several different models that are based upon similarity theory, and we compare the models with field transmission data taken from both over-water and over-land propagation paths.

Low-altitude infrared propagation in a coastal zone: refraction and scattering

Midwave and long-wave infrared propagation were measured in the marine atmosphere close to the surface of the ocean. Data were collected near San Diego Bay for two weeks in November 1996 over a 15-km horizontal path. The data are interpreted in terms of effects expected from molecules, aerosol particles, and refraction. Aerosol particles are a dominant influence in this coastal zone. They induce a diurnal variation in transmission as their character changes with regular changes in wind direction. A refractive propagation factor calculation is introduced, and it is systematically applied to the model and to the data analysis. It is shown that this refractive propagation factor is a necessary component of a complete near-sea-surface infrared transmission model.

Estimating optical turbulence effects on free-space laser communication: modeling and measurements at ARL's A_LOT facility

We evaluate a similarity-based optical turbulence model that estimates diurnal values for Cn2 from easily obtained local terrain and environmental information by comparing it with scintillometer data taken at the Army Research Laboratory’s A_LOT facility in Adelphi, Maryland. The A_LOT facility is characteristic of many planned urban sites for free-space laser communication. One end of the test site is on top of a two-story building, and the other end is a water tower about 70 meters high. This comparison examines the effects of the asymmetric location, such as the non-uniform height above ground and surface roughness length. We found that by emphasizing the terrain type directly in front of the receiver and assuming the height above ground to be the height of the receiver, model results compare favorably with experimental data.

Estimating Optical Turbulence Using the PAMELA Model

We present an optical turbulence model that has evolved from the PAMELA model. After a preliminary report in SPIE 2003 it became apparent that more data was needed to refine this adaptive model. This led us to take twelve months of over-land data (~100 meters pathlength) at the Chesapeake Bay Detachment of the Naval Research Lab. We present data throughout the year with varying environments with comparison with the model prediction. Our recent modification includes segmenting the windspeed to 3 sections, morning, afternoon, and night for better fitting. This is an attempt to incorporate variable wind speed into the model which is known to contribute significantly to the turbulence in the atmosphere. In addition, we present preliminary results from the over-the-bay data (10 km pathlength).

Recent results on modeling the refractive-index structure parameter over the ocean surface using bulk methods

Infrared scintillation measurements were obtained along a 7.2 km path over San Diego Bay, concurrently with mean meteorological and turbulence measurements obtained from a buoy located along the path. Bulk estimates and turbulence measurements of Cn2 were computed from the buoy data and compared with the optical scintillation-derived Cn2 values. Similar to the results of previous experiments, the bulk Cn2 estimates agreed well with both the scintillation and turbulence measurements in unstable conditions, increasingly underestimated Cn2 as conditions approached neutral, and agreed less well with scintillation and turbulence Cn2 values in stable conditions. The mean differences between bulk Cn2 estimates and both the turbulence and scintillation measurements when conditions were not near-neutral exhibited an air-sea temperature difference and wind speed dependence, possibly indicating that the forms of the empirical stability functions used by the bulk model are incorrect. The turbulent Cn2 measurements from the buoy showed excellent agreement with the scintillation values in unstable conditions, but had surprisingly large differences in weakly stable conditions. This disagreement may be related to the fact that humidity fluctuations begin to increasingly influence refractive index fluctuations when the air-sea temperature difference is small and are not properly taken into account by the sonic temperature measurements. As the absolute air-sea temperature difference approaches zero the bulk Cn2 estimates decrease much more rapidly and to much smaller values than either the scintillation or turbulence measurements. Fortunately, in such near-neutral conditions scintillation is usually small enough to have little effect on many optical system applications.

Refractive effects, turbulence, and the EOSTAR model

An infrared signal or a laser beam propagating along a horizontal near-surface path will encounter substantial perturbations. The fluxes of momentum and heat near the surface are relatively large, and these in turn cause large changes in the propagated intensity, direction, and coherence. It is important to be able to accurately model the separate effects that generate changes in a propagated beam, and it is also important to combine the different factors accurately. We will present some evidence from field experiments to demonstrate how refractivity changes on a ten-minute scale are manifested in a recorded infrared transmission signal. The EOSTAR (Electro-Optical Signal Transmission and Ranging) model is used to provide performance predictions for the experimental work. The EOSTAR model is built upon a geometrical optics approach to infrared propagation: a ray is traced through the propagation environment, and path-dependent perturbations to the signal can be determined. The primary computational tool for analysis of refractive effects in the EOSTAR model is a geometrical optics module that produces a ray-trace calculation for a given refractive environment. Based on the vertical profiles of temperature, humidity, refractive index structure parameter, and the calculated ray trajectories, EOSTAR calculates the path-integrated and spectrally-resolved transmission, background-radiation and path-radiation, as well as the scintillation and blur for a point source at any range and height position.

Microwave and infrared propagation over the sea during the rough evaporation duct (RED) experiment

The RED experiment was conducted offshore of the Hawaiian island of Oahu in late summer, mid-August to mid-September, of 2001. The research platform floating instrument platform (R/P FLIP), moored about 10 km off of the NE coast of Oahu, hosted the primary meteorological sensor suites and served as the terminus for the propagation link. Two meteorological buoys provided additional support. One buoy was located approximately 5 km west of R/P FLIP and the other was located approximately 15 km south, nearly mid-path on the microwave propagation link. Wind speed never exceeded 12 ms/sup -1/. Significant wave height and wave age rarely exceeded 2.5 m and 1 respectively. The microwave data were analyzed by comparing the observed signal levels to modeled results using observed meteorological data. Very good agreement is found with standard deviations of the differences ranging from 2 dB to 4 dB. Examination of the infrared data set reveals an unexpectedly weak transmission signal. The data analysis effort includes the influence of geometrical considerations (including the large 54-degree pointing excursions of the source on R/P FLIP); extinction (absorption and scattering by aerosols and molecules); and refractive effects induced by the long near-surface propagation path. However, with the low winds and wave heights observed during RED, the effects of surface waves are not readily isolated.