Nowcasting/Forecasting the Battlespace Environment

This effort to nowcast and forecast the Battlespace environment will predict the real world occurrence and structure of stressing atmospheric phenomena by developing a prototype tool and operational concept that demonstrate forecasting capability and accuracy improvements. Our approach to this problem involves locating and identifying stressing optical backgrounds contained in measurements and extracting key structure characteristics in a form that allows their insertion into this tool. Radiance codes such as MODTRAN, SHARC, and SAMM2 will be used to set threshold values and determine severity levels for sensors of interest. Techniques to assimilate real time data will be developed, and these data will be used to generate nowcasts of current conditions that reduce sensor capabilities. Techniques will also be developed to forecast sensor impairment conditions at future times. Atmospheric features will be properly located in the global/geophysical environment, accounting for the dependence of real world phenomena on time, latitude, and season, in order to ensure real world fidelity. Nowcasting and forecasting capabilities will be demonstrated and validated. The approach outlined in this Phase II proposal will lead to DOD capability to Nowcast and Forecast infrared atmospheric structure and clutter in the Battlespace Environment.