Cloud Background Clutter Suppression for Early Detection and Track

Extracting missiles from the highly structured cloud/solar background is essential to early missile detection. DRA will develop a system which uses several discrimination techniques to discern the threat from the background. DRA's system is an extension of technology developed to detect tactical missiles. The system consists of a multi-color, low-cost, commercial off the shelf sensor operating in the visible to near-infrared and a suite of clutter rejection algorithms. The suite incorporates spatial, spectral, and passive target detection (based on optical flow) algorithms. DRA successfully demonstrated the performance of the system against tactical missiles. Extrapolation to the ballistic missile detection problem requires a small increase in clutter suppression (approximately 2:1) even though much longer ranges are required. During Phase I, DRA will test the cloud clutter rejection algorithms in a dynamic launch simulation achieved by inserting trajectory and spectrometric ballistic missile signatures into background image sequences previously recorded from a testbed aircraft with DRA's sensor. DRA will utilize the equipment that has been employed for demonstrating tactical missile detection and tracking against a wide variety of backgrounds. These backgrounds are available for this simulation test. DRA will also design an optimized system to be built and tested during Phase II. The developed technology will provide a low-cost, highly reliable system for detecting ballistic missiles early in flight. This will increase the chance of effectively defeating the threat before it reaches its intended target. The technologies to be developed under this effort are directly applicable to other programs: Airborne Laser, Detect and Avoid, aircraft self protection, and detecting and engaging enemy moving ground targets.