Horizontal turbulence measurements using SLODAR

SLODAR (slope detection and ranging) is a technique we have developed to monitor the vertical profile of atmospheric phase distortions, for application to astronomical adaptive optics systems. The technique uses the correlation between slope measurements made using a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor observing a binary star. In this paper we describe the principle of SLODAR and then describe our work on using a system for the measurement of horizontal turbulence profiles for application to free space optical communications.