Measurements of wind velocity and direction with coherent Doppler lidar in conditions of a weak echo signal

The possibility of measuring the wind velocity and direction with 2-μm pulsed coherent Doppler lidar in conditions of a weak echo signal is investigated. It is shown that the use of the filtered sine wave fitting of the lidar-measured radial wind velocities allows for the estimation of the wind velocity vector components with an acceptable accuracy at a low signal-to-noise ratio up to values of −20 dB.