Design of a differential radiometer for atmospheric radiative flux measurements

The Hemispherical Optimized NEt Radiometer (HONER) is an instrument under development at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for deployment on an unmanned aerospace vehicle as part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM/UAV) program. HONER is a differential radiometer which will measure the difference between the total upwelling and downwelling fluxes and is intended to provide a means of measuring the atmospheric radiative flux divergence. Unlike existing instruments which measure the upwelling and downwelling fluxes separately, HONER will achieve an optical difference by chopping the two fluxes alternately onto a common pyroelectric detector. HONER will provide data resolved into two spectral bands; one covering the solar dominated region from less than 0.4 micrometer to approximately 4.5 micrometers and the other covering the region from approximately 4.5 micrometers to greater than 50 micrometers, dominated by thermal radiation. The means of separating the spectral regions guarantees seamless summation to calculate the total flux. The fields-of-view are near-hemispherical, upward and downward. The instrument can be converted, in flight, from the differential mode to absolute mode, measuring the upwelling and downwelling fluxes separately and simultaneously. The instrument also features continuous calibration from on-board sources. We will describe the design and operation of the sensor head and the on-board reference sources as well as the means of deployment.