TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Sensors, Weapons

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO(W)

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.

OBJECTIVE: This solicitation is seeking viable concepts for a low-cost, high-precision navigational sensor system for air vehicles flying at high altitudes and Mach number speeds that do not rely on satellite navigational systems, and which can be demonstrated in a representative environment.

DESCRIPTION: Future weapon systems with sustained high supersonic (Mach 3 to Mach 5) cruise capability fly at altitudes in excess of 70,000 feet above ground level. At low, terrain-following altitudes, precision navigational sensors such as a high quality inertial navigation system (INS) coupled with a position update sensor (radar altimeter, radar sensor, optical imaging sensor or Doppler navigation sensor) are used by long-range cruise missiles and combat aircraft to maintain accurate flight trajectories from launch to target approach and even target impact. Advanced manned and unmanned air vehicles, however, will operate for long duration (tens of minutes to hours) at high supersonic speeds and high altitudes. Active RF or optical sensors are susceptible to detection by enemy defensive sensors at these altitudes, and high-altitude weapon systems cannot rely on terrain masking to mitigate this susceptibility. Likewise, flying at these high altitudes, optical imaging of terrain features for navigational updating cannot be relied upon given the presence of cloud cover prevalent over long ranges. There is the strong possibility that such vehicles will not be able to rely upon satellite-based navigational systems for the entirety of the vehicle�s flight path.
What is needed is a navigational sensor system that can maintain an accurate position estimate while not dependent upon systems such as GPS, Galileo or Glonass. For anticipated applications to expendable weapon systems, an affordable navigational sensor system will be required, implying a low-cost inertial system coupled with a low-cost sensor.
Use of a passive, radiometric imaging receiver operating in the RF spectrum that exploits the thermal radiation from the earth�s surface offers such a sensor. Prior art for radiometric imaging from an aircraft platform has been demonstrated some 20+ years ago under a technology titled MICRAD (short for Microwave Radiometry).
Today�s RF technology is such that this type of sensor hardware could be made more compact, lightweight and more affordable, thus making such a sensor an excellent candidate sensor to complement a low-cost, advanced Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) for the desired navigational sensor system.

PHASE I: Develop a concept for a suitable high Mach, high altitude air vehicle navigational sensor suite and show its feasibility in a laboratory environment. A tradeoff between sensor resolution, observation frequency and duration will be needed to ascertain the level of navigational improvement to a given navigational system.

PHASE II: Design and prototype the conceptual sensor suite and demonstrate system functionality.

PHASE III: Mature the sensor suite design and demonstrate it in a relevant environment.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: Commercial high-altitude transport envisioned for the future will need a backup system to GPS, to mitigate the effects of solar flare disruptions.

REFERENCES:
1. H. Buell and A.J. Hunton, "Synergistic effects of Doppler radar/ GPS navigation integration and the development of an advanced navigation system for helicopter applications," Navigating the earth and beyond; Proceedings of the 1994 National Technical Meeting, San Diego, CA; United States; 24-26 Jan. 1994, pp. 821-830.

2. R.P. Moore, C.A. Hawthorne, M.C. Hoover, and E.S. Gravlin, "Position updating with microwave radiometric sensors (for all- weather inertial navigation)," NAECON '76, Proceedings of the National Aerospace and Electronics Conference, Dayton, Ohio, United States; 18-20 May 1976; pp. 13-19.

KEYWORDS: navigational sensor;high-altitude;cruise missile;high Mach;air vehicle;control

TPOC: Jonathan Huebner
Phone: (760)939-3766
Fax:
Email: [email protected]
2nd TPOC: Joseph Doychak
Phone: (703)6967646
Fax: (703)6964274
Email: [email protected]

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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