Small Aircraft Protection Using Deployable/Expendable Imaging Sensor and Processing Hardware

As imaging sensors and programmable digital processing electronics become less expensive over time, the concept of producing a very low cost detection and processing system for use in aircraft protection has become a feasible approach. Very inexpensive visible sensors will provide data to programmable field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or mask-programmed application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) which in turn perform a variety of operations used to "pick out" a small moving target from moving background clutter. The coordinates of the detected target will then be handed off to a munitions system. Nova's experience in the development of high-speed visible and infrared sensors and "biologically inspired" detection and clutter rejection algorithms is a perfect fit for this research topic. This project will develop a basic sensor/processor architecture that may be applied to the concept of "deployable/expendable" (DEX) munitions. It will produce a preliminary design, simulate and, where possible, predict the performance of a prototype system. A processing architecture will be developed under this Phase I program and both simulated and real image data will be used to test the effectiveness of the "moving target in moving clutter" approach, leading to the development of a prototype sensor/processor system in Phase II.