No Arabic abstract
A LiDAR Statistical Barnes Objective Analysis (LiSBOA) for optimal design of LiDAR scans and retrieval of the velocity statistical moments is proposed. The LiSBOA represents an adaptation of the classical Barnes scheme for the statistical analysis of unstructured experimental data in N-dimensional spaces and it is a suitable technique for the evaluation over a structured Cartesian grid of the statistics of scalar fields sampled through scanning LiDARs. The LiSBOA is validated and characterized via a Monte Carlo approach applied to a synthetic velocity field. This revisited theoretical framework for the Barnes objective analysis enables the formulation of guidelines for optimal design of LiDAR experiments and efficient application of the LiSBOA for the post-processing of LiDAR measurements. The optimal design of LiDAR scans is formulated as a two cost-function optimization problem including the minimization of the percentage of the measurement volume not sampled with adequate spatial resolution and the minimization of the error on the mean of the velocity field. The optimal design of the LiDAR scans also guides the selection of the smoothing parameter and the total number of iterations to use for the Barnes scheme.
The LiDAR Statistical Barnes Objective Analysis (LiSBOA), presented in Letizia et al., is a procedure for the optimal design of LiDAR scans and calculation over a Cartesian grid of the statistical moments of the velocity field. The LiSBOA is applied to LiDAR data collected in the wake of wind turbines to reconstruct mean and turbulence intensity of the wind velocity field. The proposed procedure is firstly tested for a numerical dataset obtained by means of the virtual LiDAR technique applied to the data obtained from a large eddy simulation (LES). The optimal sampling parameters for a scanning Doppler pulsed wind LiDAR are retrieved from the LiSBOA, then the estimated statistics are calculated showing a maximum error of about 4% for both the normalized mean velocity and the turbulence intensity. Subsequently, LiDAR data collected during a field campaign conducted at a wind farm in complex terrain are analyzed through the LiSBOA for two different configurations. In the first case, the wake velocity fields of four utility-scale turbines are reconstructed on a 3D grid, showing the capability of the LiSBOA to capture complex flow features, such as high-speed jet around the nacelle and the wake turbulent shear layers. For the second case, the statistics of the wakes generated by four interacting turbines are calculated over a 2D Cartesian grid and compared to the measurements provided by the nacelle-mounted anemometers. Maximum discrepancies as low as 3% for the normalized mean velocity and turbulence intensity endorse the application of the LiSBOA for LiDAR-based wind resource assessment and diagnostic surveys for wind farms.
Wind turbine wakes are the result of the extraction of kinetic energy from the incoming atmospheric wind exerted from a wind turbine rotor. Therefore, the reduced mean velocity and enhanced turbulence intensity within the wake are affected by the characteristics of the incoming wind, turbine blade aerodynamics, and the turbine control settings. In this work, LiDAR measurements of isolated wakes generated by wind turbines installed at an onshore wind farm are leveraged to characterize the variability of the wake mean velocity and turbulence intensity during typical operations encompassing a breadth of atmospheric stability regimes, levels of power capture, and, in turn, rotor thrust coefficients. For the statistical analysis of the wake velocity fields, the LiDAR measurements are clustered through a k-means algorithm, which enables to identify of the most representative realizations of the wind turbine wakes while avoiding the imposition of thresholds for the various wind and turbine parameters, which can be biased by preconceived, and potentially incorrect, notions. Considering the large number of LiDAR samples collected to probe the wake velocity field over the horizontal plane at hub height, the dimensionality of the experimental dataset is reduced by projecting the LiDAR data on an intelligently-truncated basis obtained with the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The coefficients of only five physics-informed POD modes, which are considered sufficient to reproduce the observed wake variability, are then injected in the k-means algorithm for clustering the LiDAR dataset. The analysis of the clustered LiDAR data, and the associated SCADA and meteorological data, enables the study of the variability of the wake velocity deficit, wake extent, and wake-added turbulence intensity for different thrust coefficients of the turbine rotor and regimes of atmospheric stability.
We consider the problem of retrieving the aerosol extinction coefficient from Raman lidar measurements. This is an ill--posed inverse problem that needs regularization, and we propose to use the Expectation--Maximization (EM) algorithm to provide stable solutions. Indeed, EM is an iterative algorithm that imposes a positivity constraint on the solution, and provides regularization if iterations are stopped early enough. We describe the algorithm and propose a stopping criterion inspired by a statistical principle. We then discuss its properties concerning the spatial resolution. Finally, we validate the proposed approach by using both synthetic data and experimental measurements; we compare the reconstructions obtained by EM with those obtained by the Tikhonov method, by the Levenberg-Marquardt method, as well as those obtained by combining data smoothing and numerical derivation.
This paper presents a method to detect reflection of 3D light detection and ranging (Lidar) scans and uses it to classify the points and also map objects outside the line of sight. Our software uses several approaches to analyze the point cloud, including intensity peak detection, dual return detection, plane fitting, and finding the boundaries. These approaches can classify the point cloud and detect the reflection in it. By mirroring the reflection points on the detected window pane and adding classification labels on the points, we can improve the map quality in a Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) framework. Experiments using real scan data and ground truth data showcase the effectiveness of our method.
Simulations of strongly stratified turbulence often exhibit coherent large-scale structures called vertically sheared horizontal flows (VSHFs). VSHFs emerge in both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) stratified turbulence with similar vertical structure. The mechanism responsible for VSHF formation is not fully understood. In this work, the formation and equilibration of VSHFs in a 2D Boussinesq model of stratified turbulence is studied using statistical state dynamics (SSD). In SSD, equations of motion are expressed directly in the statistical variables of the turbulent state. Restriction to 2D turbulence makes available an analytically and computationally attractive implementation of SSD referred to as S3T, in which the SSD is expressed by coupling the equation for the horizontal mean structure with the equation for the ensemble mean perturbation covariance. This second order SSD produces accurate statistics, through second order, when compared with fully nonlinear simulations. In particular, S3T captures the spontaneous emergence of the VSHF and associated density layers seen in simulations of turbulence maintained by homogeneous large-scale stochastic excitation. An advantage of the S3T system is that the VSHF formation mechanism, which is wave-mean flow interaction between the emergent VSHF and the stochastically excited large-scale gravity waves, is analytically understood in the S3T system. Comparison with fully nonlinear simulations verifies that S3T solutions accurately predict the scale selection, dependence on stochastic excitation strength, and nonlinear equilibrium structure of the VSHF. These results facilitate relating VSHF theory and geophysical examples of turbulent jets such as the oceans equatorial deep jets.