NASA applications mostly relate to flight safety: wind shear, vortex, and CAT detection. The low-cost through simplicity design approach may be attractive for high-reliability applications. Non-NASA applications also relate to flight safety: wind shear, vortex, and CAT detection. The low-cost through simplicity design approach may be attractive for high-reliability applications. Other commercial applications include regional air quality monitoring. This application would combine a coherent wind-sensing lidar with a pollution monitoring DIAL system to measure pollution fluxes rather than just concentrations. This data could then be used to force compliance with pollution-reduction regulations, or could provide early warning of a hazardous release. Another application is wind field mapping for wind turbine farm site assessment, as well as forward looking wind monitoring from the turbine nacelle itself for optimization of wind turbine operation.
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