Passive microwave emission from a missile plume offers potential for all-weather early launch detection because of superior microwave penetration through obscuring clouds, dust, haze, and fog. The task is to estimate through simulation the plume passive microwave signature due to gas/particle emission-absorption and the atmospheric attenuation due to obscurant emission-absorption-scattering as a basis for assessing detectability in a real world environment. The requisite physical data include the microwave spectral properties of plume/atmosphere gases and particles. Such information is available from modern databases supported by theoretical methods for spectral extension. The requisite computation methods and tools for line-of-sight radiance and field-of-view intensity are available by extension of infrared signature codes.
Benefits: The microwave spectral region offers numerous potential benefits that include all-weather detection through obscurants, detection of trace chemical/biological pollutants in the atmosphere, identification of agricultural crop health and soil moisture content, etc. The opportunity for commercial application resides in the potential utility of simulation software to support analysis and interpretation of microwave spectral/image measurement data.
Keywords: Missile Plume, Signature Code, Microwave Emission, Passive Sensing, Launch Detection, All-Weather, Line-Of-Sight, Field-Of-View
