SENSOR APPLICATION IN ANTI-AIR WARFARE

THIS RESEARCH PROGRAM WILL INVESTIGATE THE PERFORMANCE OF NEWTECHNOLOGY EO-IR ANTI-AIR WARFARE SENSOR SYSTEMS IN NOISY, CLUTTERED, AND OBSCURED ENVIRONMENTS. THIS PHASE I EFFORT WILL CHARACTERIZE SENSOR SYSTEMS AND OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS, AND WILL IDENTIFY THE ALGORITHMS THAT HAVE BEEN, AND ARE CURRENTLY BEING, USED TO PROCESS SENSOR SYSTEM OUTPUTS TO MODERATE THE DETRIMENTAL IMPACTS OF ATMOSPHERIC TURBIDITY AND COUNTERMEASURES. THIS STUDY WILL TREAT THE EFFECTS OF ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES AND CONDITIONS, AND OF COUNTERMEASURES, ON LIMITATIONS TO ANGULAR DISCRIMINATION, SCANNING MODES, TARGET-DETECTOR RANGE, NOISE, AND DETECTOR SENSITIVITY. A RANKED IDENTIFICATION OF CRITICAL LIMITATIONS TO PERFORMANCE AS FUNCTIONS OF SENSOR SYSTEM PARAMETERS, E.G., NUMBER OF SENSOR ELEMENTS, SENSOR ELEMENT ARRAY CONFIGURATIONS, SCANNING MODES, OPTICS AND FOCAL PLANES, NEP, D*, ETC., WILL BE GENERATED, AND THEN ALL IDENTIFIED SIGNAL PROCESSING ALGORITHMS DESIGNED TO OPTIMIZE TARGET DETECTION AND RECOGNITION WILL BE MATCHED TO THIS MATRIX. ANALYSIS OF THIS MATRIX WILL IDENTIFY DEFICIENCIES IN EXISTING ALGORITHMS AND DEFINE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR IMPROVED ALGORITHMS. A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT OF THE GAINS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE NEW GENERATION EO-IR SENSOR SYSTEMS UNDER NON-IDEAL CONDITIONS WILL BE PROVIDED ALONG WITH A PHASE II WORK FOR HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ALGORITHM APPLICATION. THE UTILITY OF AN HTI-DEVELOPED END-TO-END AERIAL TARGETING WORKSTATION FOR PHASE II EVALUATION OF SIGNAL PROCESSING ALGORITHMS FOR CLUTTERED AND OBSECURED ENVIRONMENTS WILL BE DEMONSTRATED.