Autonomous Situational Awareness for Munitions

ABSTRACT:The Munitions Environment Signature Model being developed by TSC will provide munitions design engineers with a tool for exploring RF fuze sensor alternatives by modeling the dynamic multistatic coherent RF signatures of targets illuminated by munition fuze sensors at sub-millimeter wavelengths. Output generated by the MESM will be suitable for use with radar imaging techniques including synthetic aperture radar (SAR), inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR), and joint time-frequency analysis (JTFA). In Phase I, TSC developed an innovative method for predicting sub-millimeter wavelength radar signatures of ground targets including smooth and rough surfaces at sub-millimeter wavelengths, cavities, and surrounding terrain accurately and quickly. This signature modeling capability will enable the MESM to provide results with much faster execution than is possible using more traditional facet-based modeling approaches. TSC demonstrated excellent execution times, modeling accuracy, and modeling flexibility at sub-millimeter wavelengths for targets having smooth and rough surfaces. TSC also presented preliminary analysis of high frequency terrain backscatter data collected by the Air Force, which will be used in the MESM terrain model. In Phase II, TSC will fully develop the tool in C++ software and document the system from technical and user perspectives.BENEFIT:The results of the proposed Phase II work will provide the Air Force with a tool for synthesizing RF signatures for use in development, testing, and evaluation of munitions sensors and signal processing algorithms, including SAR, ISAR, and JFTA. Application of the tool will result in improved performance of munitions systems.