DETERMINATION OF A LIDAR SIGNAL FROM IMAGES OF BACKSCATTERED NATURAL LIGHT ON WATER SURFACE

Abstract

ABSTRACT Surveillance is an essential component of an oil spill response that provides helpful data about cleanup operational sites and for the monitoring of the marine environment. A compact fluorescence lidar system, to be mounted in a small airplane or on a ship, has been developed to procure active real-time information of water properties even in full daylight. This paper describes a concept of a lidar system that is suitable for an operator to identify oil slicks quickly and a procedure to evaluate its performance on a ship and in an airplane. During a flight over a water surface, the proposed system could track the illuminated spots in an image with wide field of view. During a cruise, a spot illuminated by a laser on the sea surface was identified clearly even with the presence of whitecaps. The reflection from the surface was significantly greater than background noise. Signals acquired in an image were compared with adjacent background scattering due to the natural light. For an operator, the system can display a real-time spot image accurately positioned on a map.