SBIR-STTR Award

U.S. Navy airborne platforms have a need to detect, track, and classify threats while performing their missions. As group 1 UAS become more widely proliferated, their threat to interfering with the engines of aircraft become more prevalent. Additionally, traditional anti-aircraft threats, including missiles, remain persistent and must also be protected against; some with and without active propulsion systems. In this proposal, we describe a distributed aperture, 4p hemispherical, multi-spectral threat warning, tracking, and classification system that is designed to detect, track, and identify potential threats to Navy P-8A and MQ-4C aircraft. Specifically, the system is designed utilize multi-spectral infrared imagery (MWIR/LWIR or LWIR/LWIR) to greatly enhance the contrast of targets against the background of the sky or sea / land. This enables detection of objects at standoff distances of at least 10 km, which is required for adequate warning for fast closure rate threats (i.e. 800+ knots 1 km/sec) in order to take appropriate evasive or counter action. Figure 1 shows summary of the system implementation.

Benefit:
- Long range sensitivity - Dynamic Range allowing more likelihood for the sensor to see objects against background - Low SWaP - Lower cost - 360 degree and complete hemispherical coverage - low false alarm rate - Wide FOV

Keywords:
ship protection and security, ship protection and security, Aircraft Protection, P8 Poseidon threat detection, full hemispherical detection, long range UAV detection, Cryocooled LWIR, LWIR, SLS Sensors

Based on the work done in Phase I, the requirements of the solicitation, discussion with the customer, and technical interchanges with transition partners, the end goal of the Phase II is to build and demonstrate a three-color, MWIR/MWIR/LWIR infrared sensor with an interchangeable lens that allows us to switch between WFOV 34.2 and NFOV 4.4 FOV modes of operation. The ROIC features a variety of on-chip processing features including orthogonal transfer and in-phase and quadrature AC signal detection. Combined with a stabilized gimbal platform we expect to be able to detect very weak sources in a WFOV scanning mode of operation and then interrogate candidate sources with a NFOV and advanced digital signal processing to identify threats. Table 1 summarizes the objective capabilities of the Phase II Base and Option efforts.

Benefit:
- Three color responsivity - Fully integrated camera approach - not just the detector - Lowest SWaP - Low Cost - Hyperspectral Responsivity

Keywords:
Persistent Surveillance, Hyperspectral Imaging, Three color Infrared, Two Color Infrared