Missile Threat Warning Discrimination

The ability to countermeasure man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) missiles is one of the most pressing problems that military and commercial aircraft face today. Currently available countermeasure systems are costly, complex and not operationally acceptable. Current MWS equipment cannot meet all of the requirements such as long-range detection, high angular resolution, low false alarm rate, and detection of missiles in high background clutter. This program addresses the lack of MWSs that can detect surface-to-air missiles at long ranges in high clutter with a high probability of declaration and a low false alarm rate. During the Phase I effort, DRA developed a promising two-color missile-warning sensor that operates in the visible spectrum (VMWS). This silicon-based sensor exhibits many desirable capabilities for missile warning including high resolution, low cost, and high frame rate. The two-color aspect of the sensor also serves to guard against false alarms due to sun glints. DRA demonstrated VMWS feasibility by detecting live-fire missiles using a proof-of-concept sensor. The Phase II effort leverages the substantial prior investment and research into VMWS and will build a new sensor with custom, wide field of view optics that allow the collection of spectrally pure color bands.