File:Radialgeschwindigkeit.gif · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
radial velocity
Sign in to saveAlso known as radial speed, line-of-sight velocity
component of the velocity in radial direction
~11 min read
Encyclopedic overview
A plane flying past a radar station: the plane's velocity vector (red) is the sum of the radial velocity (green) and the tangential velocity (blue).
The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity of a target with respect to an observer is the rate of change of the vector displacement between the two points. It is formulated as the vector projection of the target-observer relative velocity onto the relative direction or line-of-sight (LOS) connecting the two points.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “radial velocity” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.