Present shipboard requirements for electronic support (ES) systems must combine the ability to provide a high degree of threat detectability (good sensitivity), with the ability to correlate the increased level of AOA and spectral information, and produce specific emitter identification (SEI) of various signal sources operating within the complex EM environment aboard ship. These capabilities as a whole are not reflected in present operational shipboard electronic support (ES) systems. Such systems typically lack the ability to both detect the signatures of weak or spread spectrum emitters, and provide proper spectral identification in the presence of multiple emitter threats. These limitations relate directly to the systems inability to properly correlate simultaneous emitter spectral information from the receiver along with composite video data received from the direction finding (DF) assembly. We propose a highly channelized receiver and post processing approach, in conjunction with a novel TDOA subsystem concept to produce an Advanced Signal Identification (ID) Device which addresses the shortcomings of present shipboard ESM systems described above. State-of-the-art acousto-optic (AO) RF channelizer technology, in conjunction with an advanced neural network processor, and time domain precision parametric encoding are used to correlate measured emitter parameters to obtain SEI and associated angle information.
