Detection of Hostile Fire from the Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA)

ABSTRACT:Recent technical demonstrations in hostile fire sensing and classification have highlighted the use of costly cryogenically-cooled electro-optical sensors.While capable, these types of sensors come with a higher initial purchase price as well as high life cycle costs per platform.This activity will implement a broad area hostile fire sensing architecture that uses lower cost discrete sensors which do not require cryogenic cooling assemblies.The sensing architecture will employ a split function design to separate event detection from situational awareness notification to simultaneously cover a broader surveillance area while reducing the workload required to monitor the hostile fire sensing system for remotely piloted vehicles.BENEFIT:This project will greatly reduce the life cycle cost of hostile fire sensor payloads for both manned and unmanned aerial vehicles.The solution approach will make the integration of hostile fire capability onto both military and civilian law enforcement aircraft more likely.The autonomous event cueingwill reduce the workload on aircrew, thus enhancing aircrew safety and eliminating the need for dedicated monitoring.