Backscattering Light Model of Seawater for Modulated Lidar Based on the Stationarity of Light Field

The backscattering signal, which arises from the pulsed laser traveling through water, has limited the lidar system sensitivity and underwater target contrast. The transmitted optical carrier is modulated to be ultrashort pulsed laser and it is effective to suppress the backscattering to adopt the coherent detection technology by identifying the modulation envelope. A nonstationary light field is formed in seawater by the ultrashort pulsed laser. The inherent relationship between the nonstationary light field formed by modulated lidar and the stationary light field formed by conventional lidar was discussed and the backscattering light model of the stationary light field for the ultrashort pulsed laser was proposed. The backscattering signal in modulated lidar system was processed and analyzed in the frequency domain on the basis of the model.