METHOD FOR DETECTING CLOUD LAYERS AND DETERMINING THEIR LOWER BOUNDARY ALTITUDE Russian patent published in 2000 - IPC

FIELD: instrumentation engineering. SUBSTANCE: method intended for measuring optical characteristics of atmosphere to determine altitude at which runway can be detected and to provide meteorological support for aircraft flight includes continuous optical-location measurements at pitch equal to probing period; sample is shaped from N measurement results corresponding to N probing procedures within observation period which is then ordered towards ascending or descending values of altitude R, entire range of altitudes measured at pitch ΔR, equal to permissible value of measurement error is sequentially scanned, measurement results within every two adjacent intervals ΔR, are summed up, and measurement result repeatability function F(R) is generated; altitudes of lower boundaries of cloud layers are determined using values of altitudes Ri for which F(R+ΔR) function at its ascending sections is equal to or higher than desired level of serial statistics i equal to 0.3-0.5 N. EFFECT: improved validity and informative capacity of data under multilayer broken cloudiness conditions. 2 dwg