Award

Different classes of Naval weapon systems have historically employed either radiofrequency (RF) or infrared (IR) seekers for target acquisition and tracking, with IR seekers typically being employed on shorter-range weapon systems and RF seekers on longer range weapons. As technical and tactical countermeasures are developed and employed, missile seeker systems must be responsive to remain effective. A dual-mode seeker taking advantage of both IR and passive RF phenomenology will have the benefits of both techniques while ideally remaining robust against single phenomenology countermeasures.  In the RAIDS effort, ExoAnalytic Solutions (Exo) together with Technology Service Corporation (TSC) will take advantage of previous work experience in IR imaging and passive RF sensors and seekers to create a design of a new seeker system that will use the benefits of both phenomenology to close kill chains. Our team will use Exo’s existing experience in EO/IR image processing, and TSC’s experience in RF signal processing, to design an architecture that will process both IR and RF data. RF target detections and IR detections will be converted into target tracks to form an integrated track picture. The IR images will be used to estimate object position with sub-pixel precision.  Exo has fielded, in the area of space domain awareness, a worldwide EO sensor network, and has many years of experience processing EO imagery in visible and multiple IR bands. With the help of TSC’s extensive experience with rapid development, integration, and test of RF sensors on a variety of platforms including, GMLR, AI3, Stinger, 40mm grenades, and lethal UAS, our team will design and develop a dual mode seeker that utilizes the benefits of both passive RF and IR sensors.