SBIR-STTR Award

Increasing the accuracy of reentry vehicles and providing the capability to attack imprecisely located or relocatable targets are goals whose realization would substantially enhance the security of the united states and reduce the chance of nuclear war. Most significant is the potential for increasing the accuracy to the point where non-nuclear weapons could be employed against strategic targets. These goals should be achievable through application of existing or near-term target designation and guidance technologies. BD systems is proposing a new and innovative target designation concept using bistatic synthetic aperture radar techniques. This new concept has the advantages of being operable in all weather conditions and being potentially implementable with only moderately sized sensors and receivers on the RVS and on the designation platforms. The objectives of this phase I study are to assess the feasibility of this new concept, to assess the feasibility of several other target designation schemes, to determine the technologies required for their implementation, and to identify the most promising schemes for detailed assessment in phase II.

A primary goal of the strategic policy of the united states is to provide the capability to attack relocatable targets from long range. During our Phase I efforts we identified a promising technique for putting relocatable targets at risk. We call this concept bisarah, for bistatic synthetic aperature radar homing. In this concept a transmitter on the PBV illuminates the area of suspected target locations. This allows the receiver and its associated processor on-board the r/v (which of necessity will be a mar/v) to locate the target, generate the required steering commands, and direct the warhead to the target. This Phase II effort will develop a detailed set of requirements for the employment of bisarah against relocatable targets, generate an in-depth concept design, with particular attention paid to the required computer architecture, investigate the nuclear effects on the concept, and develop demonstration and development plans.