Spectroscopic Calibration Correlation of Field and Lab-Sized Fluorescence LIDAR Systems

A method has been developed to correlate spectral signatures obtained with various fluorescence LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) systems. A calibrated fluorescence reference target was used to calibrate the spectral response of the LIDAR transmitter channels and obtain their transfer functions. Two LIDAR systems have been spectrally characterized, and corrected signatures for two bioaerosols are presented. The first LIDAR system is the Standoff Integrated Bioserosol Active Hyperspectral Detection field LIDAR developed by Defence R&D Canada. This standoff system uses a 351-nm pulsed laser in a monoaxial design. The second system is a lab-sized aerosol chamber designed to characterize fluorescent aerosols under controlled environmental conditions. The chamber was designed according to classical short-range biaxial LIDAR principles, with the purpose of duplicating the results obtained with field LIDAR systems. Aerosols generated within the chamber are probed by a 355-nm pulsed laser, and autofluorescence spectra are measured with a spectrometer and an intensified charge-coupled device camera. This chamber is used to collect the reference spectra of various fluorescing aerosols and simulants of biological agents. One of the main objectives in using this chamber is to produce and compile a library of instrument-free fluorescing spectra that can be transferred to other LIDAR-based bioaerosol sensors with known optical transfer functions.