Measured statistics of retroreflected 1064 nm laser light in atmospheric turbulence

Detection of optical targets using laser illumination has become an increasingly valuable military tool. In order to better understand typical detection scenarios for a laser illumination system and to improve target detection performance, intensity probability density functions of retroreflected near-infrared laser light were experimentally measured over a near-ground line-of-sight optical path. Returns from a corner cube and a simple lens–mirror system were recorded under a variety of atmospheric conditions, as measured by changes in the refractive-index structure parameter . In addition to its applicability to target detection, this work is relevant to atmospheric propagation research and to free-space laser communication studies.