In order to improve numerical weather forecast, the Earth Explorer Mission Atmospheric Dynamics Mission (ADM)-Aeolus (scheduled for launch in January 2018) providing global observations of wind profiles from space was implemented by the European Space Agency (ESA). Aeolus carries a single payload, Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument (ALADIN) a Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) operating in the ultraviolet spectral region making use of the Doppler effect to measure wind speed from the motion of aerosols and molecules. In order to fulfill the high accuracy requirements the use of ground echoes is an important constituent to correct for errors in the knowledge of attitude of the satellite or the pointing of the instrument. For the purpose of pre-validation, an airborne demonstrator called ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator (A2D) was developed and employed in several airborne campaigns to simulate the measurement conditions of the satellite as best as possible.
Due to the rather coarse range gate resolution (250 m-500 m) of the A2D and the ALADIN and the associated atmospheric contamination of the ground bins the use of ground echoes for bias correction is demanding. The goals of this thesis were to develop methods adapted to the special characteristics of the A2D and ALADIN ground echoes on the basis of the analysis of A2D ground echoes and to demonstrate the benefits of the developed methods. In the beginning, the A2D ground detection was improved with the aid of a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and a method to correct for errors in the instrument pointing was developed. Lastly, the applicability of A2D ground echoes as zero wind reference to apply a Zero Wind Correction (ZWC) was investigated.
The analysis of results from ground calibration parameters applying the ground detection method developed in the framework of this thesis revealed a clear benefit. For most of the cases, the atmospheric contamination and the error of the calibration parameters could be reduced. The results from the A2D pointing optimisation proved the applicability of the herein presented method to correct the instrument's ranging for pointing errors. It could be shown that the ZWC worked out for the Mie channel as the mean bias could be improved but that the atmospheric contamination of the Rayleigh ground bins made a ZWC for the Rayleigh channel difficult for surfaces with low albedo values.