Non-Intrusive Electronic Combat Environmental Effects Instrumentation

Integration/evaluation facilities such as the Integrated Defensive Avionics Laboratory (IDAL), ECIT/IFAST (Edwards AFB, AFEWES, REDCAP and PRIMES must support the development of EC systems on a real-time/non-intrusive basis. The complexity of today's EW systems require non-intrusive instrumentation for their development. This instrumentation must operate on a real-time basis so that the development/evaluation objectives can be achieved in a cost-effective manner in order to meet stringent real-time requirements. This SBIR will develop a preliminary design and implementation approach for non-intrusive instrumentation for extracting Electronic Combat (EC) environmental effects on Electronic Warfare (EW) systems. Facilities such as IDAL can stimulate EW systems for laboratory testing but has limited capability for extracting resulting effects in a non-intrusive manner. The IDAL is an excellent example of a facility that requires real-time non-intrusive instrumentation because they must work with state-of-the-art integrated avionics which share resources and data. The shared resources and data is the key enabling technology for future systems. Trouble shooting these systems is another key requirement that must be performed on a real-time non-intrusive basis. The key technical challenge is non-intrusive testing. Conventional methods of real-time instrumentation for complex EW systems that utilize shared resources and data often corrupt the data recorded and effect the systems operation providing bad test results.