Compact Sensors and Guidance for Mid-Caliber Naval Guns

One of the most important applications of mid-caliber (5-inch) Naval guns is in meeting the defensive requirements of the Close-In-Weapon-System (CIWS). The function of the CIWS is to engage and defeat aircraft and cruise missile threats that have avoided or survived the extended area defenses. AMELEX offers to explore combining a guidance and control/divert system with a radar or IR seeker in the five-inch munition to provide a hit probability approaching 100%. PIN photodetector's active area. PIN electroabsorptive devices are attractive for military applications because the technology is mature and the costs are low. A preliminary operational energy estimate of an electroabsorpative PIN diode structure is low, essentially that of charging a capacitor of comparable dimensions. This energy is recoverable from the capacitor structure of a reverse biased PIN. The power required to sustain the emissivity variation is equal to the leakage currents through and voltage across the reverse biased PIN structure, and this too seems relatively low compared to the power of several alternative methods.