High Speed Sensor Model: Aero-Optical Prediction Tool (AerOPT)

AFRL has identified the need for a tool to model the environmental effects on RF and EO/IR seekers in high speed munitions. These effects include scattering, absorption, and turbulence due to the atmosphere; turbulence and boresight error induced by the aerodynamic flow around the weapon, heating and deformation of the seeker window; and smearing of the scene due to jitter and net motion. IERUS has developed our Aero-Optical Prediction Tool (AerOPT) to model these effects. AerOPT also contains an empirical sensor model that can assess the impacts of optical aberrations, diffraction, and various noise sources. IERUS has developed a commercially licensed, high-fidelity computational electromagnetics solver, V-Lox. V-Lox supports rigorous modeling of in situ antennas, radomes, frequency selective surfaces, complex materials, and many other RF effects. We have developed tools for RF propagation through various weather conditions in support of radar operations. Furthermore, IERUS has developed a RF link model applicable to natural and perturbed ionosphere/magnetosphere environments. During Phase 1, IERUS will demonstrate AerOPT and our RF tools on a scene and high-speed seeker. After demonstrating our engineering tools, we will establish a plan for maturing these tools to production quality code comparable to our commercial product, V-Lox.