Patent ID: 8422001

Claim:
A method of measuring velocity of an aircraft at a given instant, by laser Doppler anemometry, said method comprising the following steps: acquisition of backscattered signals on three first line-of-sight axes; calculation of a spectrum of the backscattered signals; acquisition of at least an additional backscattered signal on at least one additional line-of-sight axis not coincident with one of the three first line-of-sight axes; calculation of a spectrum of each additional backscattered signal; calculation of a plurality of candidate velocity vectors; calculation of projections of the candidate velocity vectors on at least one first line-of-sight axis to provide at least a calculation axis; calculation of consistencies of the candidate velocity vectors as functions of the projections and of a spectrum of a backscattered signal acquired on the calculation axis; and choosing a measured velocity vector from among the candidate velocity vectors by carrying out a likelihood analysis on the basis of the consistencies of the candidate velocity vectors.