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14th International Symposium for the Advancement of Boundary Layer Remote Sensing IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1 (2008) 012066 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/1/1/012066

Wind velocity measurements using a pulsed LIDAR

system: first results
M Wächter1 , A Rettenmeier2 , M Kühn3 and J Peinke4
1,4
ForWind Center for Wind Energy Research, University of Oldenburg, Germany
2,3
Endowed Chair of Wind Energy, University of Stuttgart, Germany
E-mail: 1 matthias.waechter@uni-oldenburg.de, 2 rettenmeier@ifb.uni-stuttgart.de,
3
kuehn@ifb.uni-stuttgart.de, 4 peinke@uni-oldenburg.de

Abstract. Wind velocity measurements were taken using a Leosphere Windcube LIDAR
system, which operates as a pulsed laser Doppler anemometer. Here we report on first results,
which show typical characteristics of atmospheric wind velocities.

1. Introduction
Measurements of the atmospheric wind field are of essential relevance for wind energy utilization.
Different technologies are in use in this field, among them LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging)
systems. This measurement principle is currently not as well established for wind velocity
measurements as other techniques, such as cup or ultrasound anemometers. Nevertheless, the
LIDAR technology offers some advantages over more traditional methods, which shall – as well
as possible drawbacks – be investigated in the ongoing research project “Further development
of LIDAR wind measuring techniques for the offshore test field” funded by the German Federal
Environment Ministry.
For these purposes we use a Leosphere Windcube LIDAR system, which operates as a pulsed
laser Doppler anemometer. A laser beam of 1.54 μm wavelength takes measurements of the
wind speed in beamwise direction. To obtain the three-dimensinal wind vector, the beam is
inclined by 30◦ from vertical direction and measurements are taken under four different azimuth
angles (see figure 1). As the laser can take measurements, in our case, every 1.5 s, a new wind
vector can be derived from the four most recent successive measurements at the same frequency.
The length of the laser pulses of about 26 m defines the vertical extension of the measurement
volume.
As most significant advantages, a LIDAR system can take measurements in large heights (up
to about 200 m in our case) from ground level, without the need of a metmast. Additionally, the
principle of a pulsed laser Doppler anemometer allows for simultaneous measurements in several
height levels (up to ten for the Leosphere Windcube). The system is mobile and can be moved
to different locations with only little effort, compared to a metmast.


c 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd 1
14th International Symposium for the Advancement of Boundary Layer Remote Sensing IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1 (2008) 012066 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/1/1/012066

Figure 1. Sketch of the measurement principle of the Leosphere Windcube. An inclined laser
beam takes Doppler measurements of the velocity in beamwise direction under four different
azimuth angles. The three-dimensional wind velocity vector is then derived from four successive
measurements. Up to ten different height levels can be measured simultaneously.
5
4
vh [m/s]

3
2
1

0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000

t [s]

Figure 2. Segment of measured time series of the horizontal wind speed magnitude vh in 120 m
height. Additionally the ten minute mean values μ and the intervals given by μ ± σ, where σ
denotes the standard deviation of a ten minute interval, are indicated by grey lines.

2. Wind field characterisation

Atmospheric wind fields are complex structures, fluctuating in time as well as in space. In
this paper we will concentrate on the horizontal wind speed magnitude vh as a frequently used
quantity for wind field description. As a simple approach to wind field characterisation, the
ten minute mean value of the horizontal wind speed magnitude, μ = vh 10 min , is widely used
together with the standard deviation σ with respect to the same time interval, compare figure 2.
These quantities are one-point statistics and thus do not reflect the succession of velocity values.
Fluctuations on time scales below ten minutes are important characteristics of the wind field,
e.g., they determine fast load changes on wind turbines.
To characterize fluctuations of vh , two-point statistics have to be used. Most prominent are
the auto-correlation function vh (t + τ )vh (t) or the power spectral density, which can under
some conditions be understood as the Fourier transform of the auto-correlation function. As
these quantities are constructed from mean square values, they reflect second-order statistics,

2
14th International Symposium for the Advancement of Boundary Layer Remote Sensing IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1 (2008) 012066 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/1/1/012066

0.15

0.15
●
0.10

0.10
● ●
● ●
● ●
●
●

p(vh)
p(μ)

● ●
●
● ●
● ●
● ●
0.05

0.05
●

● ●
● ● ●
●
● ● ●
●
● ● ●
0.00

0.00
● ● ● ●

0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20

μ [m/s] vh [m/s]

Figure 3. PDF of the ten minute mean values Figure 4. PDF of the horizontal wind
μ of the horizontal wind speed measured at speed magnitude vh measured at 120 m height.
120 m height. The solid line denotes the fit of The solid line denotes the fit of a Weibull
a Weibull distribution to the data. distribution to the data.

and provide information about the second moments of the fluctuations.

A more general approach to two-point (or fluctuation) statistics is the investigation of wind
speed increments
δvh (t, τ ) = vh (t + τ ) − vh (t) . (1)
The moments δvh (τ )k  of these increments are called structure functions in turbulence research
and reflect the fluctuation statistics of order k. It is easy to see that the second-order structure
function is directly related to the auto-correlation function and thus also to the power spectral
density. Besides the moments, also the probability density functions (PDFs) p(δvh ) of δvh can
be investigated, which reflect the fluctuation statistics of all orders.
In [1] it has been shown that the PDFs of atmospheric wind speed increments differ
significantly both from Gaussian distributions on the one hand and from PDFs measured in
laboratory turbulence experiments on the other hand. Furthermore, in [2] a simple stochastic
model was presented, reproducing characteristic properties of different locations, such as offshore
sites or onshore sites in different terrain. In this contribution we want analyse the first LIDAR
measurements in the light of these publications.

3. Measurement data
First measurements were taken with the Leosphere Windcube device located on the roof of the
Institute of Aircraft Design at the university of Stuttgart. The wind velocity was measured at
ten height levels between 40 and 220 m. Under these conditions the device achieved a sampling
frequency of 0.66 Hz , and nine files of continuous twelve-hour measurements could be recorded,
resulting in about 250 000 samples per height level.
Invalid measurements occured from time to time, especially in large heights. According to
the manufacturer these cases are caused by to too low aerosol concentration in the air, which
leads to a low SNR. The Windcube is adjusted to evaluate 10 000 laser pulses per measurement
and accept values at an SNR of −22 dB or better [3]. For the analysis therefore only complete,
uninterrupted ten-minute intervals were selected. A section of a recorded time series of the
horizontal wind speed vh in 120 m height is presented in figure 2, together with the mean values
μ and standard deviations σ of each ten minute interval.

3
14th International Symposium for the Advancement of Boundary Layer Remote Sensing IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1 (2008) 012066 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/1/1/012066

0 0

-1 -1

-2 -2

-3 -3
log10 p(δvh)

log10 p(δvh)
-4 -4

-5 -5

-6 -6

-7 -7

-8 -8
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
δvh [σ] δvh [σ]

Figure 5. PDFs of horizontal wind speed
increments δvh (τ ) (symbols). Scales τ are 1.5,
4.5, 15, 48, and 162 s from top to bottom,
and fits according to [2] are shown as solid
lines. PDFs are vertically shifted for clarity of
presentation.
Figure 6. PDFs of horizontal wind speed
increments δvh (τ ), conditioned on μ = (5.5 ±
0.5)m/s (symbols). Scales τ are chosen as in
figure 5, and fits according to [1, 2] are shown
as solid lines.

4. PDFs of horizontal wind speed

The PDF of the ten minute mean values μ of the horizontal wind speed measured at 120 m
height is shown in figure 3. In meteorology the assumption is well accepted that μ obeys a
Weibull distribution for sufficiently long measurement periods [4]. Therefore a fit of a Weibull
distribution to the data is added to the plot. It can be seen that in our case the Weibull
distribution does not model the empirical distribution satisfyingly. As possible reasons, the
measurement time of nine twelve-hour periods may have been too short, and the meteorological
situations may not have been well-balanced. In figure 4 the empirical PDF of vh measured in
the same height level is presented, again together with a fit of the Weibull distribution. Here
the accordance is a little better, but still not good. While there are much more samples of vh
than of μ, the same reasons for deviations have to be considered as before.

5. Increment PDFs of horizontal wind speed

In figure 5 normalized PDFs of the horizontal wind speed increments δvh (τ ), see equation (1),
measured at 120 m height, are shown for different scales τ between 1.5 and 162 s. The shapes of
these PDFs clearly show a peak around the mean value and so-called heavy tails. These heavy
tails denote increased probability of extreme fluctuations δvh compared to Gaussian statistics.
PDFs of this shape are called intermittent in turbulence research. It can also be seen from figure 5
that the shape of the PDFs changes only slightly with the scale τ , and does not converge to
a Gaussian shape over a wide range of scales. This is a remarkable and characteristic feature
of atmospheric wind data [1, 5, 6]. As wind speed increments on rather small scales τ ≤ 1 min
can be interpreted as gusts, these statistics also mean an increased probablity of strong gusts,
compared to a Gaussian distribution (cf. [1]).
In reference [1] PDFs of δvh were also investigated after conditioning on a certain mean value.
Here, we follow the same procedure and present in figure 6 the PDFs of δvh only for those ten
minute intervals with μ = (5.5 ± 0.5)m/s. The same effect as in [1] can be seen also here:

4
14th International Symposium for the Advancement of Boundary Layer Remote Sensing IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1 (2008) 012066 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/1/1/012066

the PDFs now obtain a pronounced intermittent shape only for the smallest scales τ , changing
to a more Gaussian-like shape for large scales. The conditioning apparently leads to a similar
situation as in laboratory turbulence experiments, where a well-prepared mean velocity assures
a stationary flow.
For increment PDFs of laboratory turbulence a description by Castaing’s formula [7] is well
established. It models the turbulent PDFs as a weighted superposition of Gaussian PDFs,
depending mainly on the so-called form parameter λ. In figure 6, we have added fits according to
Castaing’s formula, which give a good representation of the empirical PDFs. As already stated,
for atmospheric turbulence the situation is much more complex than for laboratory experiments.
In [2] an explicit formula was developed which describes increment PDFs of atmospheric flows
as a superposition of Castaing functions, according to the distribution of the ten minute mean
values of the wind speed. We have added fits according to this formula to figure 5, which – at
least qualitatively – agree well with the PDFs of the atmospheric wind speed increments.
Both fitting procedures were performed following reference [2], including the simplified
parameterizations mentioned there. For details of the procedure, the reader is kindly referred to
the original article. The potential of both formulas for a rather simple description of atmospheric
flows is confirmed by our data. Possible sources of deviations in figure 5 are the mentioned
simplified parameter relations, as in [2]. In particular, it can be seen from figure 3 that the ten
minute mean values of our measurements are not optimally described by a Weibull distribution,
as assumed by our model.

6. Summary and outlook

In this article we have evaluated first measurements of atmospheric wind velocities, taken by
a Leosphere Windcube pulsed LIDAR system. For comparison and consistency with other
publications, we concentrated here on the horizontal wind speed magnitudes vh . Despite the
measurement period was rather short, our data show characteristic features of atmospheric flows.
In particular these are the pronounced intermittent increment PDFs of vh on all observed time
scales. These PDFs approach a behaviour as it is found for laboratory turbulence when only
periods with similar mean wind speed μ are selected, and thus support the (simplified) picture
of atmospheric wind fields as a superposition of turbulent flows with different mean velocities,
cf. [1, 2].
Further investigations will focus on the spatial and temporal resolution and averaging
effects of the Leosphere Windcube. As described in section 1 and figure 1, its principle of
measurement uses a rather large spatial and temporal region of the wind field. Quantitative
comparison to classical measurement systems, namely cup and ultrasound anemometers, will
be of special practical relevance. An additional task in this research project will be to
investigate the derivation of characteristic power curves of wind turbines using LIDAR wind
speed measurements. Besides the standard procedure, we expect some advantages of a new
method which considers the dynamics of the wind power conversion process [8, 9], combined
with the flexibility and mobility of a LIDAR system.

Acknowledgments
This work is part of the research project “Further development of LIDAR wind measuring
techniques for the offshore test field – LIDAR” funded by the German Environment Ministry
under the code number 0327642A.

References
[1] Böttcher F, Renner C, Waldl H P and Peinke J 2003 Bound-Lay Meteorol 108 163–173
[2] Böttcher F, Barth S and Peinke J 2007 Stoch Environ Res Ris Assess 21 299–308

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14th International Symposium for the Advancement of Boundary Layer Remote Sensing IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1 (2008) 012066 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/1/1/012066

TM
[3] Aussibal C 2007 WINDCUBE User’s Manual LEOSPHERE LIDAR Environmental Observations Orsay,
France
[4] Burton T, Sharpe D, Jenkins N and Bossanyi E 2001 Wind energy handbook (New York: Wiley)
[5] Lange B, Barthelmie R J and Højstrup J 2001 Description of the rødsand field measurement Report Ris-R-1268
Risø National Laboratory 4000 Roskilde, DK
[6] Ragwitz M and Kantz H 2001 Physical Review Letters 87 254501
[7] Castaing B, Gagne Y and Hopfinger E J 1990 Phys D 46 177–200
[8] Anahua E, Barth S and Peinke J 2007 Wind Energy
[9] Gottschall J and Peinke J 2007 J Phys: Conf Ser 75 012045