Visibility Measurement in an Atmospheric Environment Simulation Chamber

• Published in: Current optics and photonics 2017, Vol.1 (3), p.186-195
• Main Authors: Tai, Hongda, Zhuang, Zibo, Jiang, Lihui, Sun, Dongsong
• Format: Article
• Language: Korean
• ISSN: 2508-7266; 2508-7274

Obtaining accurate visibility measurements is a common atmospheric optical problem, and of vital significance to civil aviation. To effectively evaluate and improve the accuracy of visibility measurements, an outdoor atmospheric simulation chamber with dimensions of $1.8{\times}1.6{\times}55.7m^3$ was constructed. The simulation chamber could provide a relatively homogeneous haze environment, in which the visibility varied from 10 km to 0.2 km over 5 hours. A baseline-changing visibility measurement system was constructed in the chamber. A mobile platform (receiver) was moved from 5 m to 45 m, stopping every 5 m, to measure and record the transmittance. The total least-squares method was used to fit the extinction coefficient. During the experiment conducted in the chamber, the unit weight variance was as low as $1.33{\times}10^{-4}$ under high-visibility conditions, and the coefficient of determination ($R^2$) was as high as 0.99 under low-visibility conditions, indicating high stability and accuracy of the system used to measure the extinction coefficients and strong consistency between repeated measurements. A Grimm portable aerosol spectrometer (PAS) was used to record the aerosol distribution, and then Mie theory was used to calculate the extinction coefficients. The theoretical results were found to be consistent with the measurements and exhibited a positive correlation, although they were higher than the measured values.