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Application of Infrared Sensors to Early Launch Detection Through Clouds

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Missile Defense Agency
Contract: HQ0006-05-C-7137
Agency Tracking Number: 044-0793
Amount: $99,564.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: MDA04-169
Solicitation Number: 2004.4
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2004
Award Year: 2005
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2005-03-07
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2005-09-07
Small Business Information
10 Corporate Place, South Bedford Street
Burlington, MA 01803
United States
DUNS: 049405111
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 John DeVore
 Senior Project Scientist
 (805) 687-3026
 devore@visidyne.com
Business Contact
 John Bates
Title: Treasurer
Phone: (781) 273-2820
Email: bates@visidyne.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

Visidyne proposes to demonstrate the utility of visible and IR sensors for detecting and characterizing bright targets through cloud layers. Visidyne proposes to take advantage of sensors routinely operated as part of the Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program at their Clouds and Radiation Testbed (CART) in Oklahoma. An uplooking geometry, viewing the sun through clouds from these ground based sensors, will serve as a surrogate for the downlooking geometry of an overhead sensor viewing a terrestrial target such as a missile plume. The Cimel sunphotometer, a robotic, scanning photometer normally used to investigate atmospheric aerosols, will serve as the primary visible and IR sensor. (The proposed use of this instrument should not be confused its new "cloud mode" that is used to infer a broad-area or average cloud optical depth.) The proposed use will provide a cost-effective method for demonstrating potential capabilities of space-based surveillance sensors and validating theory and computer simulations In Phase I Visidyne will use cloud analyses, e.g., time series of cloud cover fraction and depth, routinely generated at the CART site to select specific datasets to analyze. Visidyne will download the selected databases and then perform comparisons with its Monte Carlo Adjoint Problem (MCAP) reverse scattering code and also with coincident analyses from satellite datasets, e.g., the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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