Integrated UV/VIS/IR background phenomenology models for radiation transport system trades

The Ballistic Missile Defense System’s (BMDS’s) ability to detect and track enemy missiles against earth terrain backgrounds, including any intervening clouds, requires prior knowledge of the environmental radiance conditions to support the development of optimal sensors and detection approaches. There is a need for an architecture that efficiently and seamlessly unifies terrain and cloud models in a consistent and fully integrated computer environment. Computational Physics, Inc. (CPI) demonstrated in Phase I an architecture for simulating terrain and cloud UV/VIS/IR imagery called the Global-scene Architecture for Integrated atmosphere, terrain, and cloud Analysis (GAIA). In Phase II, CPI proposes to evolve the GAIA prototype into a fully implemented model that incorporates terrain altitude and land cover, terrain material optical and thermal properties, cloud structure and microphysics, and ingestion of satellite imagery and data products, with a state-of-the-art capability for representing scene observables in the UV/VIS/IR portions of the spectrum. GAIA will include error/uncertainty estimates using well-defined statistical measures. GAIA’s capability and feasibility will be demonstrated using real world airborne and satellite mission scenarios, and validated against satellite imagery. GAIA will implement an architecture that can be efficiently and consistently interfaced with existing computer modeling environments, such as the FLITES or SSGM codes.