EOIR Fusion during Ascent Phase for C2BMC

In this Phase I STTR project for MDA, Vectraxx of Glen Allen, Virginia will address the critical problem of dealing with pre-intercept debris fields and launch family clusters as seen by IR sensors. This is an essential element to the ascent phase component of the MDA"s Ballistic Missile Defense System. The objective of this R & D effort is to characterize pre-intercept debris field and leverage the track-before-detect capability of the Histogram Probabilistic Multi-Hypothesis Tracker (H-PMHT) algorithm to produce advantageous lethal object information to the C2BMC. Our plan is to fuse together information from multiple IR sensors into useful data that fully conveys the battle space. Fusing together multiple-sensor information in an intelligent manner will help overcome the two-dimensional limitations of the passive sensors. These advances will provide earlier and more effective identification and tracking of lethal objects. In Phase I, Vectraxx will demonstrate the value of our family launch cluster tracking with multiple IR sensors. In Phase II, the goal will be to fully test our algorithm implementation with simulated scenarios and recorded ground tests in order to advance the capability to TRL-6.