Unitary Warhead Airburst Fuzing Capability

The lack of an active sensor for ranging eliminates the airburst capability on many existing conventional weapons used for impact and penetrating missions. The Air Force has a desire to add a height of burst (HOB) capability to these weapons in order to expand their operational use. FIRST RF recognizes the need for a fuzing system with the real beam accuracy of MMW frequencies, the foliage penetration and cost of low frequency systems, and no alterations to the skin of existing missile systems such as JASSM. FIRST RF Corporation has developed an innovative concept that will provide all these benefits over the wide range of applications including the JASSM platform. A robust fuze providing better than 0.5 meter accuracy is required in the presence of adverse weather, battlefield obscurants, ECM/EMI and thick vegetation and tree canopies. The fuze concept exploits radiation from existing national or commercial assets. The proposed program takes advantage of developments on other Phase II programs to put together a fuze demonstration testbed with final validation of the concept at Eglin AFB.