TEMPORAL PULSE SPREADING OF A RETURN LIDAR SIGNAL

Most spaceborne lidar applications use cross-track or conical scanning to ensure a global coverage of the investigated areas: the return sig nal of laser pulses shot at an angle with the nadir is biased by a sla nting effect that induces a temporal spreading of the received signal as compared with the return signal of a nadir shot. This paper gives t he basic formulas of the return signal for both a topographic target ( laser range finders) and a diffuse target (atmospheric lidars).