Analysis of Signals
Backscattered from Largely Dispersed Aerosol

V. V. Barun

Stepanov Institute of Physics, Belarussian Academy of Sciences, pr. F. Skoriny 70, Minsk, 220602 Belarus

Received September 12, 1995; in final form, February 8, 1996

Abstract—The power of a signal reflected from a dispersed medium composed of large particles is studied
using the small-angle diffusion approximation of radiative transfer theory. The angular dependence of the back
scattering function characteristic of aerosols in clouds and atmospheric hazes is taken into consideration. The
illumination and observation conditions typical of remote sensing and vision systems are discussed. The signal
power is calculated analytically as a function of aerosol microstructure parameters. In particular, the experimen
tal results of the laser sounding of a dispersed medium under the conditions of multiple scattering are shown to
require a special treatment at a wide angular divergence of the transmitter or the receiver beam of a recording
instrument. In this case, the time-base sweep of a signal may describe different parameters of the medium,
depending on the optical path propagated by the signal arriving at the receiver. The actual angular dependence
of the backscattering function of dispersed media is almost universally required to properly describe active sys
tems of vision with wide-beam illumination sources. Simple formulas for estimating the contribution of the
actual angular dependence of the backscattering function are derived in the limit of large optical paths.

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