Passive Range Estimation from Angle-only Sensor Data (Acq Pointing&Tracking)

The proposed work will extend the studies conducted during Phase I to develop a mature Monocular Passive Ranging capability to enable single EO/IR sensors in a UAV network to determine threat location accurately enough to cue other assets (other UAV sensors, radars, etc). Such a capability is a key enabler for Early Intercept or enhanced C2BMC, since it mitigates stressing requirements for sensor coverage as well as for data transmission and processing/fusion. Our Phase II effort focuses on developing an MPR capability for EO/IR sensors that are currently available or are soon to be deployed. Our Phase II effort includes the creation of an MPR algorithm development toolkit that includes modules for: prototyping features, feature evaluation, feature fusion, range estimation and uncertainty assessment, and for displaying and analyzing results. The toolkit will also contain a database of high-fidelity target signatures. These signatures, which are absolutely critical for the development and training of our MPR algorithm, will be developed using plume models, but will be tied to real data from airborne and Additional EOIR sensors. Our proposed project culminates with a demonstration in which a real-time implementation of our MPR software is applied to live fire data at an external location.