Plume Modulation IR Signature For Boost-Phase/Staging Detection And Threat Discrimination (BMDO/00-003E - IR>0.9 microns)

"The time-varying plume infra-red (IR) signature modulation provides a marker that allows a plume signal to be discriminated, in frequency space, from a cluttered background. From the perspective of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), it provides a novelopportunity for boost phase detection of targets. The temporal plume IR spectra contain characteristic tones, which can be exploited for missile typing algorithms and rocket motor identification. For BMD-related development of guidance sensors forinterceptors, the modulation character in a spatially resolved plume acquires increased significance The plume-to-hardbody handoff problem becomes tractable since the plume contains temporal modulation while the hardbody emission does not. Absence of plumemodulation models, detailed database of temporal signature & a validated plume simulator source for duplicating plume signatures have hindered exploitation of this distinctive signature for Boost Phase Intercept (BPI). CRAFT Tech proposes development of:1) a high-fidelity model for plume signature temporal modulation, and, 2) a field IR plume simulator source hardware, both capable of simulating missile plumes in spectral and temporal domains. Unsteady flowfield simulations will provide temporal IRspectra by employing advanced turbulence modeling, including Large Eddy Simulation (LES). Lower frequency IR tones will be obtained using a novel acoustic decomposition technique. The modeling proposed