SENSOR TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

The efforts described in this Program Element (PE) address the Advanced Technology Development associated with the Sensor Technology Program focused on sensor efforts that will improve the accuracy and timeliness of our surveillance and targeting systems for improved battlefield awareness, strike capability and battle damage assessment. The Surveillance and Countermeasures Technology project funds sensor efforts that will improve the accuracy and timeliness of our surveillance and targeting systems for improved battlefield awareness, strike capability, and battle damage assessment. Timely surveillance of enemy territory under all weather conditions is critical to providing our forces with the tactical information needed to succeed in future wars. This operational surveillance capability must continue to perform during enemy efforts to deny and deceive the sensor systems, and operate, at times, in a clandestine manner. This project will exploit recent advances in multispectral target phenomenology, signal processing, low-power high-performance computing, and low-cost microelectronics to develop advanced surveillance and targeting systems. In addition, this project encompasses several advanced technologies related to the development of techniques to counter advanced battlefield threats. The Sensors and Processing Systems project develops and demonstrates the advanced sensor and processing technologies and systems necessary for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Future battlefields will continue to be populated with targets that use mobility and concealment as key survival tactics, and high-value targets will range from specific individual insurgents and vehicles to groups of individuals and large platforms such as mobile missile launchers and artillery. The Sensors and Processing Systems project is primarily driven by four needs: (a) providing day-night ISR capabilities against the entire range of potential targets; (b) countering camouflage, concealment, and deception of mobile ground targets; (c) detecting and identifying objects of interest/targets across wide geographic areas in near-real-time; and (d) enabling reliable identification, precision fire control tracking, timely engagement, and accurate battle damage assessment of ground targets. The Sensors and Processing Systems project develops and demonstrates technologies and system concepts that combine novel approaches to sensing with emerging sensor technologies and advanced sensor and image processing algorithms, software, and hardware to enable comprehensive knowledge of the battlespace and detection, identification, tracking, engagement, and battle damage assessment for high-value targets in all weather conditions and combat environments.

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Document Details

Document Type
R2 Budgetary Justification
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2025
Source ID
0603767E_3_0400_PB_2025
Change Summary Explanation
FY 2023: Decrease reflects SBIR/STTR transfer and reprogrammings. FY 2024: N/A FY 2025: Decrease reflects completion of the Fiddler, Moving Target Recognition (MTR) and Thermal Imaging Technology Experiment-Recon (TITE-R) programs, as well as the ramping down of efforts in the Painter and classified programs.
Service Agency Name
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Entities

Organizations

  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Military Science and Technology Research and Modernization.
  • Sensor Fusion and Tracking Systems.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Microelectromechanical Systems

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