US Patent 9188677 Imaging doppler lidar for wind turbine wake profiling

An imaging Doppler lidar (IDL) enables the measurement of the velocity distribution of a large volume, in parallel, and at high spatial resolution in the wake of a wind turbine. Because the IDL is non-scanning, it can be orders of magnitude faster than conventional coherent lidar approaches. Scattering can be obtained from naturally occurring aerosol particles. Furthermore, the wind velocity can be measured directly from Doppler shifts of the laser light, so the measurement can be accomplished at large standoff and at wide fields-of-view.