(U) Target-Background Discrimination for Surveillance

(The effects of any budget/program decisions made since the information was collected during 1997-98 are NOT reflected in the National Security Space Road Map (NSSRM).)

Overview: (U)
(U) Space-based surveillance, tracking, and interceptor systems must accurately and reliably discriminate target IR and optical signatures from the atmospheric and celestial IR and optical emissions against which the targets are viewed.  When sensor specifications are optimized against realistic, accurate simulations of the atmospheric and celestial emissions in the sensor's field of view, then operational performance is significantly enhanced and system over-design is minimized, thereby making DoD space-based systems much more affordable.  The Subthrust goals are to develop and demonstrate integrated background clutter mitigation technologies for SBIRS-High and -Low and next generation hyperspectral Surveillance and Threat Warning systems, and to integrate clutter suppression technologies into hardware simulators to provide high-resolution spectral and spatial scene data of atmosphere, cloud, terrain, and celestial background clutter to support systems designs.   

(U) This subthrust:
- (U) Defines impact of optical and infrared backgrounds on Surveillance and Threat Warning, Theater and National Missile Defense, and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance systems.
- (U) Measures atmospheric and celestial infrared, ultraviolet, and visible backgrounds using satellite and rocket-borne sensors.
- (U) Models atmospheric and celestial optical and infrared backgrounds for the full range of opera-tional conditions and system design trade space.
- (U) Provides real-world background scenes, global background statistics, and reliable background scene models to support systems engineering trade studies. 
- (U) Measures and models in-flight infrared signatures of aircraft and missiles. 
- (U) Distributes and provides on-line access to background phenomenology data.
- (U) Defines optical and infrared background requirements for surveillance systems and battlespace simulations.

Description: (U)
(U) This subthrust defines impact of optical and infrared backgrounds on Surveillance and Threat Warning, Theater and National Missile Defense, and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance systems and measures atmospheric and celestial infrared, ultraviolet, and visible backgrounds using satellite and rocket-borne sensors.  The two main project areas of this subthrust are backgrounds and targets phenomenology and background clutter mitigation.   

(U) The goals of the backgrounds and target future technical architecture (FTA) are to: provide high-resolution spectral and spatial scene data of atmospheric, cloud, terrain, and celestial background clutter to support SBIRS designs; provide high-throughput data pro-cessing, analysis and distribution of back-ground phenomenology data for SBIRS, BMDO, and other DoD programs; measure in-flight infrared signatures of aircraft and missiles; and develop models capable of predicting the infrared character-istics of all aircraft, particularly in the design and development stages.  A major task under this FTA is to construct infrared at-mospheric and celestial background scenes from the superb data measured by the MSX satellite and atmos-pheric scenes from the highly successful MSTI-3 satellite mission.  The combined data set will be used to up-grade models for design of the new SBIRS surveillance system. 

(U) The goals of the background clutter mitigation FTA are to: (1) characterize and predict atmosphere, cloud, and terrain infrared background clutter for full range of SBIRS operational conditions and system design trade space; and (2) assess impact of background clutter on SBIRS performance and mission capabilities. Spatial and temporal structure in atmospheric, cloud, and terrain backgrounds produce clutter against which infrared and optical sensor systems must detect and track theater ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and aircraft threats as well as perform technical intelligence missions. Under this program, tasks are being performed to: (1) provide background clutter codes to extrapolate measured background data to the full SBIRS design trade space and all SBIRS operational conditions; (2) provide background model uncertainty bounds; (3) assess and upgrade background clutter codes for SBIRS using MSX and MSTI-3 data; (4) develop dynamic, statistical background clutter models to support adaptive hyperspectral imaging; and (5) provide expert user interface for code applications. 

User Impact: (U)
(U) None.

Programmatics: (U)
(U) Concept/Technology.
	(U) IOC: 02/1996 (2QFY1996).

Related Initiatives: (U)
(U) SBIRS-Low

Related Requirements: (U)
(U) None.

Related Categories: (U)
(U) Optic Surv Eff & Bat/Space Ops

Road Map Placements: (U)
(U) TECHNOLOGY- RDT&E.

Lead Office: (U)
(U) Air Force.

Date of Information: (U)
21 November 1997

(The effects of any budget/program decisions made since the information was collected during 1997-98 are NOT reflected in the National Security Space Road Map (NSSRM).)