Development of Fidelity Metrics for Image-based Missile Simulation Environments

Leveraging our extensive experience in Hardware-in-the-loop, Signal Injection, and All Digital Simulations, the Torch Team proposes developing an innovative approach for assessing and estimating the target and background simulation scene fidelity requirements of smart munitions. The Torch Team will define metrics and an analysis processes which aim to match simulation fidelity requirements with sensor and signal processing capabilities. Furthermore, a set of metrics will be developed to support comparative analysis of synthetic scenes with respect to collected data. Simulation environments are increasingly used to conduct exhaustive testing of advanced autonomous seeker systems. The development and implementation of our fidelity metrics will reduce the associated costs of development of over-specified scenario-specific simulations. Furthermore, by characterizing the required simulation fidelity of autonomous seeker systems, we will enable appropriate con-figuration of scene generation application features and fidelity, which will significantly reduce set-up and runtime costs of large-scale simulation tests. Using our considerable experience with scene generation applications and our comprehensive knowledge of sensor systems, our Phase I work plan will focus on analyzing sensor and signal processing capabilities and assessing simulation fidelity requirements. Our approach will address the feasibility of the measurement concepts and highlight the advantages of the proposed metric scheme.