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11-01-10, 09:32 PM
Sensors and Weapons Merge On The Battlefield
Jan 11, 2010
By David A. Fulghum
U.S.-built sensors that detect enemy sensors searching for allied aircraft targets is one of several new technology twists being developed for combat use in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Others involve using targeting sensors to let helicopter pilots see through dust “brown outs” and find the source of dumb small arms or unguided weapons fire.
A strong infrared or laser surveillance device — operated as a radar in the terahertz frequency range — can scan across a battlefield to create minute light reflections that can be detected by a sensitive IR receiver. These reflections contain information that can reveal and identify the passive sensor creating the reflection, including night vision goggles worn by an individual or infrared sensors associated with a particular weapon.
The concept is to find “passive receivers looking at you,” says Mark Hutchins, a program manager for common infrared countermeasures (CIRCM) in BAE Systems survivability and protection solutions business area. “The idea is to see a glint of reflected laser light. To do so will require more energy content, but every optical system will provide a return that can be exploited.”
While the Army is not looking for the moment at the “cat’s eye effect” of reflected IR or laser light, the Air Force and Navy are engaged in the effort with the closed-loop infrared counter measures system for the F-22 and F-35, say U.S. Army researchers.
A laser beam can be directed into the enemy missile’s seeker head and the return glint has enough information to identify the missile type and generate the appropriate response to disable its guidance, says U.S. Army Lt. Col Ray Pickering, product manager for infrared countermeasures. Eventually the Army will use something similar for ground-to-air threats.
The U.S. Army already has been working with the United Kingdom. The British military has created helicopters simulations that would allow aircrews to fire pre-emptively at enemy machine gunners before they can correct their fire enough to hit an airborne target, Pickering says. A machine gunner has to use tracers because he can’t see his bullets. A new version of the Common Missile Warning System will be able to see the tracer rounds and warn the pilot that he is being shot at. The pilot can then conduct an evasive maneuver that has 90 percent effectiveness in getting the helicopter out of the kill zone before it can be hit.
“The lines between [ISR and EW] technologies are getting more blurred every day,” agrees Michael Maas, BAE Systems chief technical officer for electronic warfare. “Better sensor fusion could let you see the source of small arms fire and other threats that are out of band and that use different parts of the spectrum. You could perhaps detect [communications] networks. Then you could geo-locate and attack emitters, jam links and disrupt communications.”
Jan 11, 2010
By David A. Fulghum
U.S.-built sensors that detect enemy sensors searching for allied aircraft targets is one of several new technology twists being developed for combat use in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Others involve using targeting sensors to let helicopter pilots see through dust “brown outs” and find the source of dumb small arms or unguided weapons fire.
A strong infrared or laser surveillance device — operated as a radar in the terahertz frequency range — can scan across a battlefield to create minute light reflections that can be detected by a sensitive IR receiver. These reflections contain information that can reveal and identify the passive sensor creating the reflection, including night vision goggles worn by an individual or infrared sensors associated with a particular weapon.
The concept is to find “passive receivers looking at you,” says Mark Hutchins, a program manager for common infrared countermeasures (CIRCM) in BAE Systems survivability and protection solutions business area. “The idea is to see a glint of reflected laser light. To do so will require more energy content, but every optical system will provide a return that can be exploited.”
While the Army is not looking for the moment at the “cat’s eye effect” of reflected IR or laser light, the Air Force and Navy are engaged in the effort with the closed-loop infrared counter measures system for the F-22 and F-35, say U.S. Army researchers.
A laser beam can be directed into the enemy missile’s seeker head and the return glint has enough information to identify the missile type and generate the appropriate response to disable its guidance, says U.S. Army Lt. Col Ray Pickering, product manager for infrared countermeasures. Eventually the Army will use something similar for ground-to-air threats.
The U.S. Army already has been working with the United Kingdom. The British military has created helicopters simulations that would allow aircrews to fire pre-emptively at enemy machine gunners before they can correct their fire enough to hit an airborne target, Pickering says. A machine gunner has to use tracers because he can’t see his bullets. A new version of the Common Missile Warning System will be able to see the tracer rounds and warn the pilot that he is being shot at. The pilot can then conduct an evasive maneuver that has 90 percent effectiveness in getting the helicopter out of the kill zone before it can be hit.
“The lines between [ISR and EW] technologies are getting more blurred every day,” agrees Michael Maas, BAE Systems chief technical officer for electronic warfare. “Better sensor fusion could let you see the source of small arms fire and other threats that are out of band and that use different parts of the spectrum. You could perhaps detect [communications] networks. Then you could geo-locate and attack emitters, jam links and disrupt communications.”