Advanced Signal Processing for Active Decoy Mitigation

A key component of an integrated ballistic missile defense system is a Ground Based Radar that can discrimiante warhead reentry vehicles (RVs) from nonthreatening decoys. Active Decoys (AD) are a particularly potent threat to a ground radar. A false targetgenerator (FTG), located on or near an RV, receives the radar pulses then retransmits a stream of identical or slightly modified pulses. Additional FTGs may be located on other vehicles widely dispersed within a threat cloud. GLS proposes to investigatepotential AD designs then develop and analyze mitigation schemes using simulated sensor data. The signal/data processing techniques to be developed have broad application to military/civilian radar systems. Similar countermeasures can be envisioned foruse against a variety of military systems requiring mitigation schemes. Similar problems arise for civilian systems due to perturbed environments such as multipath.