Potential Accuracy of Methods of Laser Doppler Anemometry in the Single-Particle Scattering Mode

Potential accuracy of methods of laser Doppler anemometry is determined for the single-particle scattering mode where the only disturbing factor is shot noise generated by the optical signal itself. The problem is solved by means of computer simulations with the maximum likelihood method. The initial parameters of simulations are chosen to be the number of real or virtual interference fringes in the measurement volume of the anemometer, the signal discretization frequency, and some typical values of the signal/shot noise ratio. The parameters to be estimated are the Doppler frequency as the basic parameter carrying information about the process velocity, the signal amplitude containing information about the size and concentration of scattering particles, and the instant when the particles arrive at the center of the measurement volume of the anemometer, which is needed for reconstruction of the examined flow velocity as a function of time. The estimates obtained in this study show that shot noise produces a minor effect (0.004-0.04%) on the frequency determination accuracy in the entire range of chosen values of the initial parameters. For the signal amplitude and the instant when the particles arrive at the center of the measurement volume of the anemometer, the errors induced by shot noise are in the interval of 0.2-3.5%; if the number of interference fringes is sufficiently large (more than 20), the errors do not exceed 0.2% regardless of the shot noise level.