In April 2005, a laser propagation experiment was conducted over a 470m horizontal maritime path. Scintillation measurements of a divergent Gaussian beam wave were taken simultaneously for different receiver aperture sizes. Terrestrial scintillation theory combined with a numerical algorithm was used to infer the atmospheric parameters refractive index structure constant, C(sub n) squared, and inner scale of turbulence, I(sub 0), from the optical maritime scintillation measurements. This paper presents the ...
The Chesapeake Bay Detachment of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL-CBD) provides an ideal environment for characterizing the effects of the marine atmosphere on free space optical communication links. The site has recently been converted to an operational 10 mile (16.2 km) one-way test range to collect information on propagation statistics in a variety of atmospheric conditions. The results presented here compare the contributions of thermal gradients across the bay to ...