SBIR-STTR Award

PRA will incorporate polarization signature modeling capability into their 3D Genesis code. Research will also investigate incorporating terrestrial and atmospheric polarization effects into the model. This will rely on PRA's extensive experience in programs such as SSGM. PRA will exercise and extend theoretical models to simulate emission of scattering polarization data where needed. A Fresnel model incorporating surface roughness and index of refraction will be employed. These data and existing material databases will be used to model the polarization signatures of objects. The goal is to have 3D Genesis running as a polarization target signature code by the end of Phase 1. Future extensions will include implementing the background polarization modeling. Phase 2 will involve comparisons of simulations to field measurements and exploitation of the polarization signatures for object identification, orientation and discrimination problems. For known object shapes, the polarization signatures determine orientation. For unknown objects, polarization signatures can help in identification of the object shape by referencing known signatures for objects such as cones, cylinders, spheres, or composite objects formed by the basic shapes. Time varying polarization signatures can greatly impact capability to separate targets from natural backgrounds and in discrimination of threat objects from those that are benign.

Discrimination between the threat, countermeasures and debris within a realistic target complex is perhaps the most challenging aspect of missile defense in the midcourse and terminal phase, and the considerable variations in shape and dynamics anticipated for countermeasures and debris are an especially vexing aspect of the problem. Development of robust, necessarily complex discrimination algorithms demands a high-fidelity EO/RF signature generation capability which we propose to develop, based on the results of our Phase 1 effort. In particular, we propose to advance the state-of-the art in three important aspects of signature generation for these objects: spanning the space of off-nominal shapes, predicting their surface temperatures and modeling the dynamics during deployment. The signature package will produce representative signature ensembles, consistent with the fundamentally probabilistic nature of the shape, size and dynamics of off-nominal countermeasures and debris. It will produce fully correlated Vis-IR and RF signatures, to support a very broad range of potential applications including data fusion. We believe the commercial market for this technology includes the space-launch community, for whom the detection and characterization of off-nominal objects and general debris is a matter of growing concern. PRA intends to apply our experience gained in establishing a record of success in migrating significant technical advances into commercial products to the commercialization of the product of the proposed effort.