Classification
Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)
Distribution
Limited Distribution C: Restricted to U.S. citizens who are employees of the federal government or its contractors. See Security information for instructions on participating in short courses with limited distribution.
Instructor
Dr.Steven T. Fiorino and Jaclyn E. Schmidt
Duration
Full-day course runs 0800-1700
Credits awarded
4 CLPs
Course Fee
Standard Registration: $550 (includes Government Registrations)
Current Full-Time Students: $150
Course Description
This course addresses how to characterize and quantify the major effects of the atmosphere on directed energy weapons propagation. A first principles atmospheric propagation and characterization code called the Laser Environmental Effects Definition and Reference (LEEDR) is described and demonstrated. LEEDR enables the creation of climatologically- or numerical weather prediction (NWP)-derived vertical profiles of temperature, pressure, water vapor content, optical turbulence, and atmospheric particulates and hydrometeors as they relate to line-by-line or band-averaged layer extinction coefficient magnitude at any wavelength from 200 nm to 8.6 m. Applying those atmospheric effects to High Energy Lasers (HELs) is addresses by introducing and demonstrating a high-fidelity scaling-law HEL propagation coded called the High Energy Laser End-to-End Operational Simulation HELEEOS. The course outline is as follows:- Intro to atmospheric structure and constituents
- Atmospheric boundary layer
- Aerosol / fog / clouds
- Atmospheric radiative / propagation effects
- Extinction, refraction
- Optical turbulence, scintillation
- Laser Environmental Effects Definition and Reference (LEEDR)
- HEL thermal blooming effects in the atmosphere
- Optics, beam control: turbulence / thermal blooming compensation
- Coherent beam combining
- High Energy Laser End to End Operational Simulation (HELEEOS)
Intended Audience
U.S. Government personnel and their direct contractors who have program requirements for or are interested in methods and tools to assess realistic environments and environmental effects for HEL modeling and simulation, HEL mission planning, and/or military systems operations. The course assumes the students have some technical background in radiative transfer through the atmosphere--either via an undergraduate degree or career experience.
Instructor Biographies
Dr.Steven T. Fiorino, AFIT
Steven T. Fiorino received his BS degrees in geography and meteorology from Ohio State (1987) and Florida State (1989) universities. He additionally holds an MS in atmospheric dynamics from Ohio State (1993) and a PhD in physical meteorology from Florida State (2002). He is a retired USAF Lt Col who is currently a Professor of Atmospheric Physics within the Engineering Physics Department at AFIT and is the Director of the AFIT Center for Directed Energy. His research interests include microwave remote sensing, development of weather signal processing algorithms, and atmospheric effects on military systems such as high-energy lasers and weapons of mass destruction. Dr. Fiorino is a DEPS Fellow; a senior member of Optica, SPIE, and AIAA; and a member of AMS.
Jaclyn E. Schmidt, AFIT
Jaclyn E. Schmidt received her BS degree in meteorology (2010) from the University of South Alabama, and her professional career is rooted in atmospheric and oceanographic data analysis for DoW and military service support, including NOAA's National Data Buoy Center and the Naval Oceanographic Office. She is currently the Laser Environmental Effects Definition and Reference (LEEDR) POC for the Center for Directed Energy (CDE) at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). Her research interests include numerical weather modeling, aerosol effects on radiative transfer, and enhancements to modeling and simulations tools as they relate to the directed energy and intelligence communities. She is a member of DEPS and AMS.