Tracking Through Laser-Induced Clutter for Air to Ground Directed Energy Systems

"We address acquisition, tracking, and aim-point selection on tactical targets for air-to-ground high-energy laser (HEL) applications. Effects of complex natural clutter are considered, in addition to effects related to laser propagation such as weather,battlefield obscurants, atmospheric turbulence and thermal blooming. We propose the use of passive multi-spectral sensing techniques for rejecting natural clutter during initial target acquisition. Active, multi-pulse laser radar imaging is proposed formitigating effects of camouflage, smoke, and other battlefield obscurants in target tracking and aim-point selection. To treat turbulence, thermal blooming, and aero-optical effects, we propose a new direction-angle ambiguity rectification technique.This technique builds on a block-matching algorithm for imaging through horizontal turbulence to determine the laser pointing errors present over a target scene extending many isoplanatic patches. From this information, the direction-angle ambiguityassociated with high-resolution range measurements in the presence of turbulence, thermal blooming, and aero-optical gradients may be corrected for use in pattern recognition. Additionally, the block-matching processing output may be used to correcttilt-anisoplanatism resulting in proper HEL stabilization. We propose the development of a MATLAB toolbox to interface Government-developed WaveTrain and Infrared Modeling and Analysis (IRMA) code