Cooperative Infrared Jamming Techniques

US Army Countermeasures (CMs) equipment developers have the responsibility to develop the capability to protect US Army aircraft against older, current and future theats. Under their direction new infrared (IR) jammers and decoys are being developed. Some of these new jammer CMs are designated to ahve a directional capability and are called directional infrared countermeasures (DIRCMs). Some of these DIRCM systems are planned to operate in a coordinated manner with IR decoy deployment. Previous studies and some field measurements have shown that cooperative use of IR decoys and jammers can enhance or if used improperly reduce overall IRCM effectiveness. This effort proposes developing a capability for quantifying, evaluating and optimizing the effectiveness of cooperative IR countermeasures and tactics. It will apply this capability to investigate using non-coherent DIRCM jammers in a cooperative way with fielded or near term developmental decoys to provide improvement in IRCM effectiveness over current equipment and tactics. Phase I addresses data gathering, definition and development of the structure for a database tool to help facilitate technique development and investigations and recommendations for a methodology to quantify, evaluate and optimize cooperative IRCM jamming-decoy dispense techniques.