SBIR-STTR Award

In order to meet evolving advanced threats, missile defense systems must increase their target discrimination capabilities by using advanced seekers. Advanced seekers include multiple IR sensors operating in mid, extended mid and long wavelengths, laser radar for range, velocity and high-resolution angle data, sensor data correction to improve image uniformity and strapdown optical system control for laser steering. Increased sensor performance will result in improved target discrimination, identification, tracking and map handover, along with operation through countermeasure events and tumbling target tracking. This increase in performance results in an increase in seeker complexity and cost. The objective of the proposed effort is to significantly reduce the cost and complexity of the next generation THAAD seeker control and data processing. The goal of the proposed effort is to reduce the cost of current and future seeker processing by fifty percent through integrating sensor interfaces, object processing, sensor data fusion processing, and vehicle and backend processing into one subassembly for incorporation into future block upgrades

In order to meet evolving advanced threats, missile defense systems must increase their target discrimination capabilities by using advanced seekers. Increased sensor performance results in improved target discrimination, identification, tracking and map handover, along with operation through countermeasure events and tumbling target tracking. This increase in performance results in an increase in seeker complexity and cost. The objective of the proposed effort is to significantly reduce the cost and complexity of current and next generation THAAD missile electronics by integrating the processing functions and interfaces into one subassembly for incorporation into future block upgrades. Due to the significant investment in software, efforts to reduce cost must not break the fundamental processing architecture and interfaces in the process. The proposed effort develops a seeker assembly design and engineering model hardware of a key seeker processing component that reduces hardware cost, mass and power of the existing THAAD EMD system without requiring a significant investment in porting existing software to it.

Keywords:
Seeker, Gimbal, Infra-Red Video, Cost Reduction, M