Airborne Infrared (ABIR)
Abstract
Tracking large enemy ballistic missile raids with airborne sensors forward in the theater gives us a tremendous ability to decrease the time between the enemy`s launch and our first track. This increases our battle space by hundreds of seconds and gives us the ability to shoot, look, and then shoot again. This improves our ability to successfully engage the enemy threat and defeat it. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory and the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization released an Alternatives Assessment study that concluded airborne sensors integrated on remotely piloted vehicles are technically feasible and cost effective. In this study, we selected the Multi-spectral Targeting Sensor due to its proven performance in an operational environment. We can put the Multi-spectral Targeting Sensor in a pod without integrating into a specific platform. They will have two color, medium and long wave bands we need to single out the enemy`s threat vehicles from decoys. We are also developing advanced sensors technology. The United States Air Force conducted a platform assessment and selected the MQ-9 Reaper for our campaign. Last year we proved promising sensitivity, pointing, and timely delivery of tracking information from great distances on several targets of opportunity that included Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and tactical missiles. Results of these tests include the ability to: track first and second stage booster separation; track dim targets; and pass real time object sighting messages to the ground stations. The success of these tests prove forward based airborne sensors can be an effective component of the Ballistic Missile Defense System by using the tremendously promising sensitivity and precision pointing to track ballistic missiles of all ranges from great distances. The Missile Defense Agency, with Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory and industry partners are developing an airborne processor which will control sensor pointing, sensor tasking, and formation of object sighting messages both for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance network and our Aegis shooters. Additionally, the Combatant Commanders are developing a concept of operations for adding this mission to the Nation`s remotely piloted vehicle fleet. We are executing a campaign that leverages previously unexploited platforms and sensors through a series of knowledge points culminating in 2013. We will achieve these knowledge points through experiments leveraging existing Ballistic Missile Defense System test events and other targets of opportunity. These knowledge points include measuring sensor performance, target auto tracking, large raid handling capacity, secure communications, accuracy and timeliness to close the fire control loop for early intercept of regional ballistic missile engagements. Our campaign progresses from models and simulations to ground and flight tests to incrementally verify and validate functionality. Our graduation exercise will occur in 2013. We have planned three experiments for this graduation exercise. The first will demonstrate Aegis` s ability to launch on tracks from this sensor and close their fire control loop. The second will use multiple wavebands of the sensor to extract target features and transmit to command and control nodes to enhance overall ballistic missile defense discrimination. The third will demonstrate our ability to handle a large raid of enemy missiles. In parallel, we will develop an advanced sensor as a spiral development to the infrared technology. Near-term knowledge gained from airborne sensors requirements development and experimentation is directly applicable to air launched hit to kill operations concepts, detection, tracking, and early threat classification. Synergies result from sensor characterization, sensor control algorithms, track generation and processing, and communication paths. We use a robust modeling and simulation process where we rapidly develop, low-fidelity models and update with high-fidelity models as our airborne sensor matures. Our models are added to a Ballistic Missile Defense System level modeling and simulation environment including other Ballistic Missile Defense System elements to develop a simulation tool suite that rapidly integrates models from diverse sensor projects. This tool suite facilitates trades studies and analyses at the system level to assess future Aegis missile engagement performance.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Project
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2012
- Source ID
- MD67_0604884C_4_0400_PB_2012
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