Delivery and Development of a Day/Night Whole Sky Imager with Enhanced Angular Alignment for Full 24 Hour Cloud Distribution Assessment

Delivery and Development of a Day/Night Whole Sky Imager with Enhanced Angular Alignment for Full 24 Hour Cloud Distribution Assessment
Author: Janet Shields
Publisher:
Total Pages: 19
Release: 1997
Genre:
ISBN:

The Whole Sky Imager is a ground-based digital imaging system for assessment of cloud cover over the full upper hemisphere. Using a fisheye lens and a slow scan CCD sensor, it acquires imagery under daylight, moonlight and starlight conditions. This contract funding enabled Marine Physical Lab to provide a new Whole Sky Imager to the Air Force, with several enhancements. The primary enhancements funded under this contract included more accurate alignment with respect to the sky field, detailed documentation, and enhancement of the software to allow interactive modification of the data acquisition from remote sites.

Whole Sky Imaging of Clouds in the Visible and IR for Starfire Optical Range

Whole Sky Imaging of Clouds in the Visible and IR for Starfire Optical Range
Author: Janet E. Shields
Publisher:
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2007
Genre: Clouds
ISBN:

This report describes the work done for the Starfire Optical Range, Kirtland Air Force Base under Contract N00014-01-D-043 DO #11, between 02 September 2004 and 30 April 2006. This work relates to the Air Force's need to characterize the cloud distribution during day and night, for a variety of applications, including support of research into impact of clouds on laser communication and support of satellite tracking. This contract followed Contract N00014-01-D-0043 DO #4, which will be discussed in Section 2, and is documented in Shields et al 2007, Technical Note 271. Under this contract, we began preparing Whole Sky Imager systems for field experiments in support of program goals, adapting the software and refurbishing the hardware. Significant progress was made both in the related cloud algorithms and in methods to assess their accuracy. A related contract was funded through Boeing during 31 January 2005 - 30 November 2005. The tasks completed under that contract are closely related to these tasks, and will also be reported here. In particular, early portions of the night algorithm work reported in Section 7, and early portions of the hardware and software refurbishment were completed partly under the ONR contract and partly under the Boeing contract. The work under this Boeing contract was finished in May 2005. A follow-on contract, ONR N00014-0l-D-0043 DO #13 was funded on 20 April 2006. The work under DO #13 will be reported under a separate report upon completion of the contract.

Enhancement of Near-real-time Cloud Analysis and Related Analytic Support for Whole Sky Imagers

Enhancement of Near-real-time Cloud Analysis and Related Analytic Support for Whole Sky Imagers
Author: Janet E. Shields
Publisher:
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2007
Genre: Clouds
ISBN:

This report describes the work done for the Starfire Optical Range, Kirtland Air Force Base under Contract N00014-01-D-043 DO #4, between 25 May 01 and 31 September 06. This work relates to the Air Force s need to characterize the cloud distribution during day and night, for a variety of applications, including support of satellite tracking, and support of research into impact of clouds on laser communication. This contract followed Contract N00014-97-D-0350 DO #6, which will be discussed in Section 2, and is documented in Shields et al 2004b, Technical Note 265. The primary goals of Delivery Order #4 discussed in this current report included further development of day and night cloud algorithms and support of the fielded Whole Sky Imager instruments. Much of the work done under DO #4 was completed by the end of 2004. Some additional work was done in 2005 and 2006 under the DO #4 funding, but most of the SOR work during this interval was done under a follow-on contract, ONR N00014-01-D- 0043 DO #11, funded September 04. The work under DO #11 will be reported under a separate report

Continuing Support of Cloud Free Line of Sight Determination Including Whole Sky Imaging of Clouds

Continuing Support of Cloud Free Line of Sight Determination Including Whole Sky Imaging of Clouds
Author: Janet E. Shields
Publisher:
Total Pages: 62
Release: 2007
Genre: Clouds
ISBN:

This report describes the work done for the Starfire Optical Range, Kirtland Air Force base, under ONR Contract N00014-01-D-0043 DO #13, between 20 April 2006 and 31 July 2007. This work relates to the Air Force's need to characterize the cloud distribution during day and night, for a variety of applications

Upgrading the Day/Night Whole Sky Imager from Manual/Interactive to Full Automatic Control

Upgrading the Day/Night Whole Sky Imager from Manual/Interactive to Full Automatic Control
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 7
Release: 1994
Genre:
ISBN:

The Whole Sky Imager (WSI) is a ground-based system for assessment of cloud cover over the full upper hemisphere. Using a fish-eye lens and a slow scan CCD sensor, it acquires imagery through daylight, into moonlight and starlight conditions. At the start of this contract, the new Day/Night WSI was in brassboard configuration. This contract funding enabled MPL to complete assembly of the system, acquire system calibrations for measuring system characteristics, and develop algorithms for control of the system. The WSI was fielded and cloud decision algorithms were developed based on the acquired test data. (AN).