PROGRAMMABLE FIELD OF REGARD OPTICAL PROXIMITY FUZE

TECHNICAL REPORT RD-AS-89-18 DEVELOPED A NEW OPTICAL CONFIGURATION FOR AN AIR-DEFENSE OR ANTI-MISSILE PROXIMITY FUZE WHICH PERMITS A VARIABLE FIELD OF REGARD TO BE USED. THE SENSING FIELD IS PROGRAMABLE IN BOTH SHAPE AND POINTING ANGLE, CONTROLLED BY THE POSITION AND TILT OF A MULTICHANNEL IR LASER SENSOR INSIDE A HEMISPHERICALCAVITY OPTIC. THIS HAS THE POTENTIAL TO PERMIT IN-FLIGHT FUZE OPTIMIZATION FOR THE EMERGING TECHNOLOGY OF AIMABLE WARHEADS. THIS EFFORT SEEKS TO INVESTIGATE AND REFINE THE CONCEPT OF HEMISPERHICALCAVITY OPTICS AS APPLIED TO ADAPTABLE-GEOMETRY PROXIMITY FUZE TECHNOLOGY. THE OBJECTIVES OF THIS PROGRAM INCLUDE LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS INTENDED TO VALIDATE THE PIECE-WISE PRISMATIC APPROXIMATION USED IN THE PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS. RANGE EQUATIONS WILL BE DEVELOPED WHICH WILL PREDICT SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIOS FOR A VARIETY OF LASER SENSOR SYSTEM APPROACHES, INCLUDING CW, PULSED, PARALLEL AND MULTIPLEXTED MULTICHANNEL SYSTEMS.