Lidarpc

The LidarPC computer program is used to simulate and model the Lidar Equation for a pulsed Laser Radar or Lidar system for Hard Target and Atmospheric Aerosol Backscatter applications. The program allows the user to specify the input parameters of the Laser Radar or Lidar system (laser power per pulse, target reflectivity, telescope diameter, etc.), perform slant path calculations, and calculate the expected Lidar signal return as a function of range. The program allows the user to input the attenuation and backscatter coefficients of the atmosphere, or to use models from the BACKSCAT (US Air Force Research Lab LOWTRAN) program that models the backscatter coefficient and attenuation of atmospheric aerosols as a function of wavelength and altitude, and the high resolution molecular attenuation (transmission) calculations of the atmosphere using the HitranPC TRANS program.

The BETASPEC program that is included with LidarPC is a user-friendly version of the US Air Force BACKSCAT (version 4.0) program, which allows the user to easily change the weather conditions and wavelength range of the calculations. The output from this program is a data array of the backscatter coefficients and aerosol attenuation coefficients as a function of wavelength and of altitude. The BETASPEC output file contains the attenuation and backscatter coefficients due to aerosols (clouds, dust, etc.) in the atmosphere and can be subsequently used by the LidarPC program. The HitranPC TRANS program generates the high resolution molecular absorption spectrum of the atmosphere and its output file contains the attenuation coefficients due to molecular gases (CO2, CH4, H2O, etc.).

This software package contains the LidarPC and Betaspec computer programs, a user manual both on the CD and in paper form, and the PhD thesis of W. Wilcox Jr. (Wilcox, 1995) in the Adobe Acrobat PDF format for reference purposes.