The Heterodyne Wind Lidar Gadget HEDWIG for the German research aircraft HALO: instrument design, wind retrieval and first airborne observations

The HEterodyne Detection Wind lIdar Gadget (HEDWIG) is a new airborne Doppler wind lidar developed at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for high-resolution observations of atmospheric wind profiles. The instrument operates at an eye-safe wavelength of 1617 nm. A newly developed double-wedge scanner provides rapid and flexible beam steering, enabling both conical scanning for horizontal wind retrieval and parallel nadir-pointing observations for direct measurements of the vertical wind component. The complete instrument, including laser transmitter, receiver, scanner, data acquisition system and wind retrieval chain, is described in detail. Particular emphasis is placed on the optical and mechanical design of the scanner, the synchronized data acquisition, as well as the retrieval algorithms for line-of-sight (LOS) Doppler velocities and atmospheric wind vectors. The instrument was successfully deployed for the first time aboard the German research aircraft HALO during the North Atlantic Waveguide, Dry Intrusion and Downstream Impact Campaign (NAWDIC) in winter 2026. Surface-return analyses demonstrate a systematic wind speed error below 0.1 m s −1 and a random error of about 0.2 m s −1 for single LOS measurements under high-SNR conditions. First airborne observations further demonstrate the capability of HEDWIG to retrieve horizontal wind vectors together with high-resolution vertical wind profiles. The instrument therefore provides a unique observational capability for airborne studies of atmospheric dynamics as well as for satellite instrument validation as for instance the Doppler velocity products of the cloud profiling radar on EarthCARE, but also for future missions as WIVERN and Aeolus-2.