Atmospheric InfraRed Measurement and Assessment System (AIRMASS)

Infrared sensing technology is invaluable as a means to passively detect, identify, and track threats where visible-light methods fall short.  Warfighters need to be aware of the presence of a threat as early as possible to provide sufficient time to act.  This drives industry toward sensors that test the limits of resolution and SNR that physics allows.  Flight testing of these systems is critical to ensure they perform as specified prior to deployment.  Atmospheric variability has a major impact on the confidence of these tests, which are typically designed to mitigate or remove its effect.  Modern sensor systems, however, have advanced to the point where commonly-held assumptions about the atmosphere no longer apply, thus creating a demand for a system that incorporates true-of-date atmospheric data.  AIRMASS meets that demand by taking advantage of the vast databases of public-domain meteorology data that are available supported by high-resolution imagery collected from a pod-based sensor system. AIRMASS hardware leverages tried and tested COTS and GOTS systems to ensure reliability.  The AIRMASS pod will integrate with SciTec’s AIRTRAC application, which computes atmospheric transmittance factors using MODTRAN informed by meteorology data from NOAA and other open sources.  A clear picture of the hardware solution must be established before any changes can be made to AIRTRAC that incorporates it.  So the primary task of Phase I has been to research the trade space of existing sensor and pod systems and to determine how they can be used to meet the performance that USAF flight testing demands, or if there are existing systems that already qualify.  The secondary objective was to predict the accuracy and viability of such a system.