Nicholas-Alexander Smith
2017/2018
Heriot Watt University
Fraunhofer UK Research Ltd
Compact wind LIDAR: towards hand held remote sensing of wind
The ability to remotely map wind speed and direction is of importance for a number of applications. Currently, of great commercial interest, the growth of the wind industry has led to an increase in demand for low cost high performance remote wind mapping. This is particularly the case for the burgeoning offshore wind market where the expense of constructing meteorological platforms is prohibitive. Wind data feeds into all stages of an energy project from resource mapping, gathering finance data, power-performance testing and wind turbine control. Coherent Doppler LIDAR is an established laser based remote sensing technique that is currently deployed. These systems use a heterodyne technique to measure the Doppler shift of particles carried by the wind. At the moment these systems are costly and bulky and can be expensive to install (often having to be positioned by crane) and maintain (complex designs that require factory service). The theme of the EngD will be to look at all aspects of Doppler wind LIDAR and to develop compact prototypes in collaboration with industry partners. By exploiting advances in FPGA programming, optical design, detector sensitivity and analysing the use cases of LIDAR, the goal of hand held wind LIDAR can be achieved. The project will involve working on commercial R&D projects but also interacting with the remote sensing academic community.