Missile Impact Location Scoring

A missile impact location system design is proposed that makes maximum use of existing, proven hardware and software algorithms for precise location of impact points on the water surface. A field of 6 to 12 VLAD sonobuoys with modified beamforming are deployed in a pattern surrounding the expected impact point. Each sonobuoy carries a differential GPS receiver that continuously tracks its location with instantaneous accuracies of 2-4m. The actual tracks of all sonobuoys are established by smoothing their position data with regression fits. Acoustic data relayed from the bouys to a central station is processed to suppress background interferences, recognize the surface impact signature, and triangulate to a most probable impact point through hyperbolic fixing using multiple buoy pairs. A centroid algorithm that weights buoy contributions and over-determining hyperbolic crossings by their measured validities establishes the final location choice. All of the hardware and most of the software algorithms have been developed and tested in similar applications. The power of the triangulation and cetroid algorithms supported by a multiple buoy field with GPS location accuracies should permit ultimate impact point determination to within one foot.