Spatio-Temporal Filtering and Dynamic Programming for Early Launch Detection and Tracking of Boosting Targets

During Phase I, Computational Sensors Corporation (CSC) will develop a spatio-temporal (S-T) filtering approach, preliminary system architecture and an analysis algorithm for motion based early launch detection and tracking of boosting targets. Boost-phaseintercepts have an extremely compressed time line requiring fire control commit to be determined within the first minute following launch for an endo-atmospheric or low exo-atmospheric intercept. A spatio-temporal motion based approach performs dataassociation over multiple frames without relying on absolute detection in any given frame, and therefore has utility in boost-phase intercept engagements when the target has a low signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) due to atmospheric attenuation or is onlyintermittently observable. Systems relying on exceedance thresholding will have higher false alarm rates, and be less robust to changing atmospheric conditions than systems performing multi-frame data association. A motion based approach to early launchdetection leverages the natural ability of massively parallel analog hardware to perform computationally intensive image processing tasks in real-time.Target analysis capabilities using nonlinear motion analysis image processing techniques integrated in analog image processors are ideally suited for compact, low power, military imaging applications. Dramatic improvements in early detection of low and/orintermittently observable targets are available through track-before-detect implementations using spatial and temporal filtering in combination with target tracking algorithms. The Company's primary goal is to move this core technology into the militarymarket with products using this technology initially being sold for missile defense applications.Analog image processing technology may also be applicable in many other commercial areas including automatic inspection, biometric identification, security, surveillance, and other machine vision applications. To date, non-linear motion energy imageprocessing technology using Tin Film Analog Image Processor (TAIP) chip technology developed under Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract in conjunction with temporal filtering capability developed under ARMY Space & Missile DefenseCommand (ARMY-SMDC) contract has demonstrated significant utility in detection, track-before-detect capability when coupled with dynamic programming, and discrimination of low flying missile targets in moving background clutter.CSC is fulfilling current DARPA and ARMY-SMDC sponsored contracts while aggressively pursuing potential commercial opportunities for analog VLSI image processing applications. The unique and powerful capability to perform massive convolution functions inreal-time, in a small package and with low power requirements will enable a new generation of intelligent systems not previously considered vi-able by system and product designers systems for performing sophisticated imaging tasks including automatictarget recognition, target tracking, feature extraction, 3D reconstruction, image classification, and image understanding are critical for the building of compact, low powered deployable missile defense systems.