Long Range Maritime Battle Damage Assessment

The timeliness, accuracy, and completeness of battle damage assessments (BDA) is critical to the success of any military engagement. BDA have traditionally utilized relatively short-range optical sensors onboard aircraft operating in close proximity. However, the safe airspace access required to observe the target at close range is not possible in anti-access/area denial situations. BDA utilizing long-range radar tracking and imaging is an alternative. Radar does not provide the level of high resolution and high definition consistent with human visual characteristics. As a result, there is a need for innovative approaches to extract comparable information from radar returns for the BDA of ships at sea from ranges that may exceed 50 nautical miles (nmi). Gross changes such as the vessel going dead-in-the-water or rotating antennas ceasing operation are easily discernable with radar. More challenging is determining if the vessel is listing and what type of external structural damage has occurred. Advances are needed in single and multi-channel inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging techniques. Advantages of interferometric ISAR should be considered, as some fielded radar systems are capable of supporting that mode. Consideration should be given to scenarios that allow imaging to be underway immediately prior to weapon impact, at the time of the impact, and at various times after impact. Transition of this product is to be as an appliance within the Navy’s Minotaur control application.