Regularizing method for the determination of the backscatter cross section in lidar data.

The retrieval of the backscatter cross section in lidar data is of great interest in remote sensing. For the numerical calculation of the backscatter cross section, a deconvolution has to be performed; its determination is therefore an ill-posed problem. Most of the common techniques, such as the well-known method of Gaussian decomposition, make implicit assumptions on both the emitted laser pulse and the scatterers.