WP3: Technology and Concepts

The overall objective of this work package is to develop and test new instruments and concepts for the usage of lidars.

In detail the objectives are:

  • Usage of small lidar telescopes for turbulence studies and wind tunnel research.
  • Test and develop further a novel high temporal, high spatial resolution wind lidar.
  • Development of software toolbox for the collaborative wind lidar technology platform OpenLidar.

One task aims to demonstrate the capabilities of small lidar telescopes (Lidics) on steerable platforms such as robotic arms for opening up the research field of lidar remote sensing of flows on the meter-scale with sampling volumes of a few centimeters for fundamental and applied research. The research links to long suspension bridge aerodynamics research and turbulence observations as well as wind tunnel experiments.

Another task aims to develop and test a high temporal, high spatial resolution optical low-coherence range resolving principle for probe volume limitation using a continuous wave laser source modulated by a synthetic phase noise. Extensive field tests of its performance will be conducted.

A third task aims to further develop the open source lidar platform. This has emerged from the IEA Wind Task 32 to enable collaboration across the worldwide wind lidar community. The initiative OpenLidar is a platform for open source hardware and software design, construction, and operation of wind lidars. In this task an OpenLidar software toolbox for wind field reconstruction for different applications such as field micrometeorology and wind energy will be developed.