SBIR-STTR Award

HCMs pose a unique and challenging threat due to their speed, maneuverability, and low flight altitudes. They maneuver and change their trajectory while traveling at a much lower altitude as compared to their TBM counterparts as they only reach peak altitudes of 100 km in the upper atmosphere as opposed to 1400 km peak TBMs and spend much of their flight time at significantly lower altitudes. This shortens the flight time from the ships horizon and timeline to intercept significantly. This can be mitigated by employing MALE or HALE UAS to extend the horizon but still requires new radar modes. RDRTec proposes to expand our Challenging target Airborne Detection & Discrimination (CADD) mode development testbed to create a suite of tools for the development and evaluation of radar modes suitable for defense against HCMs. CADD has been developed across a series of SBIR topics including: N141-067, N151-105, N152-083, N192-059, and N192-089. It provides a means of developing and testing advanced radar modes suitable for challenging target detection and discrimination. A series of different waveforms as a function of the sensors platform velocity tangential to the search direction must be employed. Highest performance will be achieved where tangential velocity is sufficient to support Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) modes which will provide the best cross range resolution. Coherent techniques based on SAR processing are well suited to addressing the problem of detection and discrimination of hypersonic cruise missiles (HCM) despite the motion of the HCM during coherent integration time. They provide wide area coverage and are far less sensitive to grazing angle than non-coherent techniques, allowing the platform to operate at higher altitudes and steeper grazing angles. In addition, they offer improved performance due to a richer set of potential discriminants and the ability to detect moving targets with a wide range of motion paths. Where only modest tangential velocities are available the mode will employ Doppler Beam Sharpening (DBS) techniques and when no limited tangential velocity is available the mode will resort to real beam waveforms. In all three sectors, processing will take advantage of multiple apertures (STAP or monopulse) and multiple polarizations when available. The use of a multi-polarimetric data may improve detection and tracking of HCMs. However, the performance gains relative to single-pol systems have not yet been fully quantified. RDRTec proposes to attack this HCM topic in collaboration with a diverse, collaborative set of partners in order to view the problem from multiple points of view, leverage a broad range of expertise, and increase the likelihood of transitioning the results to the US war fighter. This team is comprised of: RDRTec (research prime), HyPerComp (modeling experts), NRL (subject matter experts), and Telephonics (subject matter experts and supplier of radars to multiple USN programs).

Benefit:
If successful, the research proposed under this topic will provide a development and test environment for HCM defense radar modes as well as a prototype baseline mode. When deployed on a Medium or High Altitude Long Endurance platform, such a mode will provide a significant improvement in ship defense against HCMs. Our approach is scalable across a range of levels of sensor sophistication from sensor with limited advanced wavefrm capabilities through fully cognitive sensors. We will leverage our experience fielding tactical processor and involve radar manufacturers from the start of our design to ensure the techniques are transitionable to tactical systems.

Keywords:
hypersonic, hypersonic, Cruise Missile, Track Before Detect, plasma wake, Radar

The goal of this program is to complete the design of a radar mode for the detection and discrimination of supersonic cruise missiles (SCMs) at long ranges by medium to high altitude airborne maritime surveillance radars capable of providing early cueing of ship self-defense systems. RDRTec will continue to advance our modular Challenging-target Airborne Detection & Discrimination (CADD) testbed, which was expanded for hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs) in phase I, to provide the tools needed to evaluate supersonic and hypersonic target detection/tracking modes. With our partners, we will produce additional simulations of SCM and clutter RF signatures that provide vital insight into the scattering mechanisms as a function of grazing angle, altitude, kinematic, look direction relative to the sea, and radar operating frequency. Our approach addresses the challenges posed by speed, maneuverability, and flight altitudes, including the necessity to account for a variety of motion models and multiple hypothesis tracks and the trade-off between wider area coverage and early detection and tracking.

Benefit:
At the completion of phase II, RDRTec will be postured to transition innovative CM Radar modes to both open architecture radar systems and to modern proprietary radar systems. Anticipated customers are USN prime contractors. The products we will have matured will be a CM mode, CM models, and a CM mode development testbed. Without these modeling and testbed products a mode would be nearly impossible to transition. Our approach will support tuning for specific sensors and detailed testing for a wide range of CM threats and CONOPS. This is specifically important since threat details and DoN operational requirements are still evolving. We have identified the following opportunities for transitioning our CM mode: Supplying it as a COARPS compliant 3rd party mode to prime contractors including Raytheon to whom we are already a supplier of an ISAR 3rd party mode. (Specific program is classified). Supplying it as a Northrup Grumman compliant 3rd party mode for integration into MFAS (once the RPS has been upgraded to support 3rd party modes). Integration into the Telephonics MOSAIC radar system (configured with appropriate power-aperture) for future programs. Supplying it as a 3rd party mode into the Raytheon APS-154 AAS radar.

Keywords:
Radar, Ship defense, Cruise Missile, Surveillance Horizon