Advanced Discrimination Technologies and Concepts

Stratonics proposes to develop active mid course ballistic missile discrimination techniques which rely on the interaction of the clutter with an artificially produced plume. At altitudes of 140 miles the interaction will be free molecular. At lower altitudes the interaction will be dominated by continuum physics. Precise understanding of this interaction will allow for the midcourse discrimination algorithm to improve target detection and discrimination. Using shock tunnel measurements and high altitude chamber measurements, the impact of the active discrimination media will be measured on a simplistic advanced countermeasure model. The phase I proposal provides a proof-of-concept demonstration. In phase II, Stratonics will implement the measurement techniques to quantify the interaction envelope for the active discrimination technique.