Atmospheric Turbulence Study with Deep Machine Learning of Intensity Scintillation Patterns

Abstract

A new paradigm for machine learning-inspired atmospheric turbulence sensing is developed and applied to predict the atmospheric turbulence refractive index structure parameter using deep neural network (DNN)-based processing of short-exposure laser beam intensity scintillation patterns obtained with both: experimental measurement trials conducted over a 7 km propagation path, and imitation of these trials using wave-optics numerical simulations. The developed DNN model was optimized and evaluated in a set of machine learning experiments. The results obtained demonstrate both good accuracy and high temporal resolution in sensing. The machine learning approach was also employed to challenge the validity of several eminent atmospheric turbulence theoretical models and to evaluate them against the experimentally measured data.

Keywords

• atmospheric remote sensing
• directed energy
• free-space laser communication
• adaptive optics
• lidars
• active imaging