Development of a Wavefront Sensing Window for Severe Aerothermal Environments

"To improve the performance and affordability of infrared-guided missiles, we propose to develop a mosaic window concept that would be assembled from many window elements, with each element serving as an optical tilt sensor to detect line of sight to thetarget. Each single-piece element would consist of three components: a micro-optic for focusing and filtering; an X-Y detector to sense vertical and horizontal line of sight to the target; and an onboard signal processing chip. If needed, each elementwould be individually cooled by a tangential jet of helium. The array of window elements would form a Wavefront Sensing Window (WSW). The WSW would have several advantages over a conventional window/seeker combination, including reduced total costs, nomoving parts, improved resistance to aerothermal environments, reduced sensitivity to aero-optic blur, greater flexibility in external shape (e.g. cone, cylinder, ogive, flat, etc.), and increased temporal bandwidth. The Phase 1 investigation will defineWSW functional requirements and then perform analyses and trade studies in optics, thermostructures, and electronics. Phase 1 results will include element materials, element size and count, micro-optic design parameters, detector design parameters, andsignal processing architecture. A prototype would be fabricated and tested in Phase 2. Successful development of the Wavefront Sensing Window should improve the performance and affordabili