This book offers an exhaustive treatment of free-space electro-optical instrumentation for remote sensing, such as LIDAR, detection techniques and communications in turbulent and turbid media. Introductory chapters review a variety of topics, including fundamentals of diffraction, photodetection and noise; radiometry and colorimetry; modulation formats; coding; and forward error correction. It is hard to find all of this material in a single textbook. The core chapters are easy to follow and describe in detail LIDAR, free-space optical communication(including atmosphere absorption and scattering) and the optical thick communication channel. Special reference is given to cloud and ocean systems, and to pointing and tracking techniques. There should be no problem in using this publication as a textbook, because it includes many examples. This comprehensive book will also be a very useful reference for researchers and engineers involved in optical remote sensing and instrumentation.
Review by Silvano Donati of the University of Pavia, Italy.
The opinions expressed in the book review section are those of the reviewer and do not necessarily reflect those of OPN or OSA.