AUTOMATIC TARGET MODEL DEGRADATION

HARDWARE-IN-THE-LOOP SENSOR TESTING PUTS STRONG CONSTRAINTS ON TARGET MODELING DUE TO THE NEEDS FOR HIGH SPEED AND ACCURACY. THESE CONSTRAINTS CAN BE MET BY SPECIFIC APPROACHES TO GEOMETRIC AND RADIANCE DEGRADATION. GEOMETRIC DEGRADATION MUST PRESERVE THE OVERALL OBJECT SHAPE, AND THE MAJOR REGIONS OF DIFFERENT RADIOMETRIC PROPERTIES. THIS CAN BE DONE BY CURVATURE APPROXIMATION AND DETAIL REDUCTION, UTILIZING THE SPIRITS WIREFRAME STRUCTURE. RADIANCE DEGRADATION MUST BE DONE BY SPATIAL AVERAGING OF RADIANCES COMPUTED AT HIGH RESOLUTION. THE AVERAGING CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED BY CONSTRAINING THE GEOMETRY DEGRADATION TO FOLLOW A "PARENT-CHILD" HIERARCHY. THE PHASE I EFFORT WILL GENERATE THE NECESSARY ALGORITHMS AND DATA STRUCTURE, AND WILL IMPLEMENT THEM IN ANSI STANDARD FORTRAN 77, CAPABLE OF EXECUTION ON A UNIX-BASED WORKSTATION.