Temporal Processing for Airborne Missile Warning Applications

This Phase I SBIR proposal represents a cooperative effort between Atlantic Aerospace Electronics Corporation and Texas Instruments, Inc. It is aimed at developing and assessing the feasibility of two innovative and fundamentally different approaches to track-before-detect (TBD) processing for passive airborne IRTW and IRST sensors. TBD processing techniques are required for airborne surveillance and threat warning applications in order to effectively counter the very low contrast IR signature of modern threats. Current TBD approaches can provide good signal gain but are computationally very costly and impractical for real-time implementation in compact, low power airborne hardware. The two proposed techniques each offer potential for major performance gains relative to existing methods. However, since they are based on entirely different signal processing approaches, there exists the possibility for potentially combining the best features of both to achieve performance in excess of that afforded by either alone. In addition both approaches offer good potential for smaller, lower power hardware implemenatations than competing methods. In Phase II we will synthesize an algorithm that incorporates selected elements of both approaches in order to maximize detection performance, reduce false tracks, and minimize processor size, weight and power requirements for airborne applications.