Flickerless Electro-optic Imagery for Simulation and Test Instrumentation (FEISTI)

Testing in a simulated environment is an essential feature of weapons system development. However, creating that environment can pose severe technical challenges. In the case of TV-guided munitions, the difficulty stems from the need to preserve dynamicimage fidelity with respect to a weapon's seeker; a task which is very different from creating imagery which appears realistic to the human eye, and which cannot be performed by conventional video display devices. Our novel FEISTI technology, however,provides artifact-free imagery with negligible flicker at any frequency. From a seeker's perspective, each pixel of a FEISTI-based image fades smoothly from one brightness level to the next; the result being analogous to natural light illuminating areal-world scene. Using this technology, we propose to develop a visible-spectrum scene projector which can be mounted upon a flight motion simulator and which can supply high-resolution imagery that is both flickerless and highly uniform. The Phase IIprogram will result in the development of a dual-use projector which satisfies the simulation requirements of the Air Force while, at the same time, providing the prototype of a common test set which can support the field testing of several weaponssystems.