Directed Energy Wind Tunnel Test Methodology

MZA proposes the development of the Integrated Directed Energy Aero-optical Surrogate (IDEAS) which consists of a 1/4th scale aircraft parent model and a laser pod architecture with modular beam director and supporting flow control configuration for transonic and supersonic aero-effects testing at the AEDC 16T wind tunnel. The laser pod model may be remotely articulated to point in arbitrary directions to work cooperatively with the Captive Trajectory Omni-directional Reflector (CapTOR) which will also be developed in this project. The CapTOR makes use of the existing Captive Trajectory System (CTS) for weapons stores releases. CapTOR consists of a high-quality reflector which is repositioned through the test section. When aligned in an arbitrary line-of-sight direction relative to the IDEAS, a beacon illuminator is projected from the IDEAS pod, mimicking the standard active illumination beam control approach used in DE weapons. The beacon light is reflected back into the IDEAS receiver to be relayed to the Aero-isolation Measurement Sensor (AIMS) which MZA is currently transitioning from earlier Phase I and Phase II SBIR developments for aero-optical testing at AEDC.