Development and potential of space-borne doppler wind lidar

The advantage of lidar over other wind sensors is presented in this paper. With more than 20 years research, the development of the space-borne wind lidar is reviewed. Longer-term investigation has made many technologies suitable for the wind lidar measurement from an orbital platform become mature. However, there are still some problems to be solved. In order to obtain the optimal performance in wind detection, great importance is being attached to the simulation of a virtual space-borne wind lidar system on computer as developed by NASA and ESA.