Detection and discrimination using multiple-wavelength differential absorption lidar

Abstract

A methodology is presented for generalizing two-wavelength single-material differential absorption lidar to multiple wavelengths for use in simultaneous multimaterial detection and discrimination. A key role in the analysis is played by the concentration path length (CL) product covariance matrix ΛĈL, which generalizes the CL variance. Detection statistics for a multiwavelength alarm system are computed using ΛĈL with a multivariate normal distribution for the estimated CL product values. Off-diagonal elements in ΛĈL are found to affect significantly the predicted performance of two-material detection systems.