ENABLING

TECHNOLOGIES
FOR NATIONAL
DEFENSE

SPECIAL REPORT

Sensor processing in
the information age
Digital signal processing capabilities are
keeping pace with explosive growth in the use
of complex sensors and sensor networking
to enable situational awareness on the
battlefield like never before. General-purpose
processors are joining forces with server-class
chips, graphics processing units, and fieldprogrammable gate arrays (FPGAs) to get the
most from todays radar, sonar, electronic
warfare (EW), signals intelligence (SIGINT),
and other challenging sensor-processing
applications.

REPRINTED WITH REVISIONS TO FORMAT FROM MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS.

COPYRIGHT 2015 BY PENNWELL CORPOR ATION

Infrared sensors
blending with signal
processing to yield new
levels of surveillance
PAGE 2

Unmanned, sensorladen, and ubiquitous

PAGE 5

Sonar signal processing

job using commercial
off-the-shelf (COTS)
equipment goes to
Lockheed Martin
PAGE 16
Advanced military
night-vision sensors
rely on sensor fusion,
networking, and
signal processing
PAGE 19

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JANUARY 13, 2014

Infrared sensors blending

with signal processing to yield
new levels of surveillance
THERE WAS A TIME when infrared sensors provided contrast between warm and

cold objects, and essentially not much more. These longwave infrared sensors,
also called heat seekers, yielded images that detected warm objects over relatively
cool backgrounds.
This approach continues to this day in aerospace and defense intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) applications to detect and classify humans
and animals from the
warmth of their skin, as well
as land vehicles, aircraft, and
industrial sites from their hot
engine exhaust.

The Micro-Hyperspec sensor for short-wave infrared (SWIR)

from Headwall Photonics features a 900-to-2,500-nanometer
spectral range.

Still, infrared sensing

is becoming far more
sophisticated today than
simply detecting warm objects.
Medium-wave and short-wave
infrared sensors are revealing
other segments of the light
spectrum to enable imaging
subtle detail in shadow, the
ability to see through windows,
and even differentiate between

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Infrared sensors blending with signal processing to yield new levels of surveillance

different kinds of foliage-all in low-light or no-light conditions detectable to

the naked eye.
Beyond these advances, new and emerging levels of optical sensitivity and optical
throughput are making high-resolution infrared sensors not only smaller and more
lightweight, but also less expensive.
Smaller size makes infrared sensors more broadly applicable to new classes of small
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on which every gram of extra weight counts.
Decreasing costs for sophisticated infrared sensors also makes this technology
accessible to a growing number of systems integrators and applications, who can
find innovative new uses.
Not only are enhanced individual sensors proving to be a boon to the ISR
community, but their potential to combine the signals from several different infrared
sensors also is coming to bear on the industry. Multispectral and hyperspectral
sensors also are decreasing in size, weight, and cost to increase the availability of
these technologies.
Perhaps the most exciting new development on the horizon for infrared sensors,
however, is integrating sophisticated digital signal processing, computer databases,
and infrared sensor data to identify detailed and specific infrared signatures such
that surveillance and intelligence experts can identify not only narrow classes of
targets, but also individual targets.
Think of the way sonar experts operate aboard Navy attack submarines. Each
submarine listens constantly with several kinds of sonar arrays, which are able not
only to detect enemy submarines and surface vessels at very great distances, but also
to listen for specific sound signatures.

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Infrared sensors blending with signal processing to yield new levels of surveillance

In this way attack submarine crews with high levels of certainty can identify separate
classes of submarines, and sometimes even the specific submarine hull number by
matching details of the detected sound signatures to a large and growing database of
known submarine sound signatures.
Now apply that same principle to infrared sensors. As sensor sensitivity, resolution,
and signal processing advances, surveillance experts can start compiling databases
of known infrared signatures and matching those with detected targets.
The result will be not only the ability to detect idling vehicles or snipers hidden in
trees, but also the ability to detect disturbed dirt that might indicate the presence
of a hidden improvised explosive device (IED), the ability to detect and classify
explosive agents in real time, the presence of chemical and nerve agents in the air,
and many other applications.
Infrared surveillance systems are matching libraries of infrared signatures
to detected targets today, and the sophistication of this approach is
improving over time.
There are established libraries of optical signatures to detect a signature of a
material they are looking for, and that they know of, explains David Bannon, CEO
of optical sensing specialist Headwall Photonics Inc. in Fitchburg, Mass.
They can fly over with a UAV sensor, see a priority signature, and send it as a
positive hit via data link to the ground for further processing, Bannon describes.
When the UAV lands, they pull the data drive and do post-mission processing, and
that is how they build their signature libraries.

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JULY 1, 2012

Unmanned, sensor-laden,
and ubiquitous
By Courtney Howard, Executive Editor

UNMANNED VEHICLES CARRYING advanced sensor and processing payloads

proliferate the modern battlefield, in the air, on the ground, and at sea.
The modern warfighter needs all the high-quality information he can get and,
increasingly, this is being obtained via sensors deployed on unmanned vehicles,
notes Peter Thompson, system architect, GE Intelligent Platforms in Towcester,
England. Unmanned vehicles outfitted with advanced sensor payloads are
actively gathering, and even processing, a wealth of intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance (ISR) data.
Theres a proliferation of sensors, says Christopher C. Ames, director of
international strategic development at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems in San
Diego. The number of unmanned ground, aerial, and undersea vehicles deployed
by aerospace and defense organizations has grown exponentially given the many
benefits they deliver.
Predator unmanned aerial vehicles from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems are
used extensively for combat missions, including ISR activities.
Predator unmanned aerial vehicles from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems are
used extensively for combat missions, including ISR activities.

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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

GE, working with Juniper Networks, has introduced the RTR8GE secure battlefield router to
improve mission-critical communications and information sharing.

Unmanned benefits

Sensors are the eyes and senses for the remote [operator], and these sensors feed
the processing subsystems, which lend to effective decision-making and active
flight management, says Dagan White, aerospace and defense product marketing
manager at field-programmable gate array (FPGA) specialist Xilinx Inc. in
San Jose, Calif.
A key advantage of unmanned platforms is persistence, says Paul Monticciolo, chief
technology officer of Mercury Computer Systems and president of Mercury Federal
Systems Business Unit in Chelmsford, Mass. Manned missions can be limited by
human endurance factors, whereas unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can surveil the
area of interest for 24 hours or more.
Pilot safety is an important aspect, Monticciolo adds. It helps remove the human
element. For ISR, unmanned platforms have shown exceptional utility.
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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

The benefit of combining an unmanned aircraft and sensors is the flexibility in

deploying and operational use of those sensors in a desired scenario, Ames explains.
General Atomics equips its unmanned aircraft with a variety of sensors that make
it a very effective tool in generating persistent situational awareness. The companys
Lynx synthetic aperture radar provides all-weather, wide-area surveillance, takes
high-resolution, photographic-quality radar images, boasts a ground-moving target
indicator (GMTI) capability, and can see through clouds, Ames says. Theres no
point in having an ISR platform if youre unable to penetrate clouds with a sensor.
It also harkens to the need for flexibility in sensors, so it has a maritime capability.
When you combine that with an electro-optic infrared (EO/IR) capability for days
when weather is clear, you have a formidable ISR collection suite.
Using [CLAW] software integrates all sensors on an aircraft. It makes the sensors
operate complementary to one another. For example, you can pick up a Lynx
synthetic aperture radar image and, with a series of points and clicks, the software
will automatically redirect the EO/IR device to point toward and lock upon
the radar image so that you can cross-queue and determine if it is a contact of
interest, Ames adds.
Added advancements

Technology firms continue to answer the call for greater unmanned payload
capacity and more advanced sensor payloads. Ground-based robots have proved
their value in the field many times over, being able to venture into places where
a human would be at great risk, Thompson observes. Dealing with improvised
explosive devices (IEDs) and leaking nuclear reactors are but two examples.
There is a drive to improve their sensor suites: higher-resolution cameras, fusing
EO and IR sources, electronically removing jitter from moving images, and so
on, Thompson adds. Wide-area surveillance platforms are being fitted with
more sensors of higher capacity. An ISR platform might combine electro-optical,
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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

infrared, and synthetic aperture radar modalities to provide better coverage in

differing conditions.
Each sensor type is being continually improved with bigger focal plane arrays,
faster frame rates, and bigger swaths, Thompson says. One piece of the system
that struggles to keep pace is the bandwidth of the communications link. The
usual analogy is that of a fire hose of incoming data being connected to a soda
straw for output.
There is a seemingly insatiable demand for bandwidth and processing capability
in UAV platforms, but it must be balanced against the need for reduced power
consumption to enable extended mission capabilities, White says. Full-motion
video feeds are crucial for remotely based pilots, and this further drives the overall
bandwidth demand.
The only practical way to approach the problem is to move more and more of the
signal, image, and data processing onto the platform, Thompson advises. This has
to be done within strict constraints of size, weight, and power (SWaP) to minimize
effects on the overall performance of the platform in its mission.
GE is harnessing the power of supercomputer installations and replicating it in a
package that is small enough to fit where it has to go and robust enough to survive
extremes of temperature, shock, and vibration, Thompson says. Supercomputing
and high-performance computing (HPC) is now available in the form of highperformance embedded computing (HPEC). HPEC is fundamental to managing
sensor payloads on unmanned vehicles because of the high bandwidth of data,
processing complexity, need for very rapid response times, and pressure on SWaP.

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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

Bad bandwidth

Mobile platforms, such as unmanned

vehicles, often are connected to the
global network through a relatively
low-bandwidth link, explains Eran
Strod, system architect at CurtissWright Controls Defense Solutions
in Ashburn, Va. The traditional
workflow required the data to be
transmitted back to a central location
where commercial high-performance
General Atomics CLAW software can be con-figured to
computing (HPC) systems would
control EO/IR, synthetic aperture radar, and data link
perform back-end processing. Then,
payloads simultaneously.
an analyst would physically look at
the information of interest in order to
determine any desired actions. The delay in this workflow is several hours or even
days. Unfortunately, the information was often obsolete by the time it reached those
who needed it.
Moving processing to the mobile platform, near the sensor, could enable faster
response times but requires an HPEC system, Strod says. Its a similar processing
model, but performed on the data in real time without the bottleneck of the lowbandwidth link back to a data center. Automated algorithms perform first-order
processing and transmit only select imagery and other metadata over the link. This
workflow is much more optimized and gets much closer to real-time response. The
key is putting rugged processing elements adjacent to the sensor where there are
no bottlenecks.
The best way to achieve supercomputing performance at the sensor today, by far,
is with a combination of Intel processors and general-purpose graphics processing
units (GPGPUs), Strod adds. These processing elements tend to consume a fair
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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

amount of power so air-flow-through technology (VITA 48.5) is emerging as a

significant enabler.
Onboard processing

Aerospace and defense end users typically must adhere to certain standards
for data-link communications. Whereas the commercial industry can evolve
communications quickly, such as rapidly moving from 3G to 4G, the size of the
military installed base is such that upgrading is too expensive, Monticciolo admits.
One way to deal with that problem, which is not going to be solved for quite some
time, is to do much more processing and exploitation on board.
What I expect to see in the future is more of the autonomous type of processing
where youre doing not just detection, but also tracking, targeting, determining
target characteristics from the data, and passing along only key information

General Atomics CLAW software can be con-figured to control EO/IR, synthetic aperture radar,
and data link payloads simultaneously.

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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

directly to the warfighter, Monticciolo predicts. Thats the vision. We have this
constriction of bandwidth and we have to figure out smart ways to deal with it
and get that actionable information and intelligence directly into the warfighters
hands. Putting more and more of the processing on the UAVs and sending down the
essential data over those limited links is really the path to the future.
Mercury Computers processing and storage technologies are playing a role in
current and next-generation unmanned systems. Increment 1 of the Gorgon
Stare program, a wide-area electro-optical and infrared sensor system on a
General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper aircraft for the U.S. Air Force, involves a Mercury
processor and storage system tied to ITT Exelis EO and IR cameras and an L-3
Communications system. Sierra Nevada Corp. is the prime contractor on the
Gorgon Stare program.
The Gorgon Stare payload looks at all the information available in a moderatesized city diameter, Monticciolo explains. We are taking information from either
of those camera types and [putting it] through the image-rendering process. In
addition to providing that full operating environment, you have the ability to send
directly to the warfighter small segments of information in real time.
Gorgon Stare has been deployed in theater. The next phase involves digital cameras
with enormous data rates that need to be processed, for which Mercury engineers
are leveraging commercial technology with a combination of GPGPUs. The
gaming industry is where these GPUs have come to fore, Monticciolo says. Weve
taken those processor capabilities and applied them to sensor signal processing. We
can do advanced image processing in a very power-efficient manner using these
particular chips.
Mercury Computer also employs field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to
handle the high data rates coming in from sensors, as well as to perform image
compression and other signal processing functions. Company engineers also take
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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

server-class microprocessors from Intel and package them appropriately [with]

efficient ways of removing the heat so that we can put the same processors that are
in the servers you find in ground stations and put them right on the [unmanned]
platform, Monticciolo enthuses. Now, you could wind up taking the same software
and same kind of exploitation processing you do in ground stations and do that
onboard the platform.
Mercury Computer also provides solid-state data storage subsystems, which are
very important in exploitation because you want to exploit databases for maps,
past behaviors, etc., Monticciolo says. How do I correlate the information I have
obtained now with past behavior I have observed? The ability of Mercury processing
on this Gorgon Stare platform to ingest data, process it, perform exploitation, store
it, and disseminate it to the ground and ground stations is extremely powerful.
Compute power

Users of unmanned vehicles and sensor payloads will continue to push the limits
of compute power bundled with more sensor data acquisition capability, but not
to the detriment of the payload size, predicts R.J. McLaren, marketing manager,
military products at Kontron in Poway, Calif. SWaP comes at a premium in these
types of vehicles. We certainly expect customers to want to increase the processing
capability in order to analyze data locally, which will allow them to make real-time
decisions. This may actually cause the need for more payload capability, as those
decisions may result in additional requirements for other capabilities.
Kontron delivers board- and system-level products-including 3rd Generation Intel
Core i7 processors, high-performance GPGPUs, switches, and carrier boards-to
the unmanned vehicle market, including standards-based, conduction-cooled
solutions that engineers can leverage to build rugged systems. Engineers working
on unmanned vehicles also tap the companys configured systems, with boards
enclosed and loaded with the operating system, drivers, and BIOS configurations.

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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

On the storage side, solid-state drives (SSDs) in the required extended

environmental range continue to grow in capacity and features, like encryption
and secure-erase capabilities, McLaren describes. Our Cobalt and ApexVX
conduction-cooled systems are optimized for SWaP and are a standards-based
modular design that can support a wide range of requirements. This market
continues to see an increase in requirements as engineers innovate how unmanned
vehicles can be used and as there continues to be a successful track record with
deploying these systems.
Parallel processing

Unmanned vehicle sensor payloads continue to capture a seemingly

insurmountable volume of data, including high-resolution imagery and full-motion
video. Concurrently, solutions providers are harnessing the latest innovations,
including commercial off-the-shelf technologies.
Incorporation of preprocessing in the FPGA fabric taking advantage of massively
parallel computing power to reduce the data and find the key information of interest,
and then post-processing in the ARM processing subsystem for image fusion,
manipulation, and export for display is absolutely a strong fit for Xilinx within
UAV payloads, White says. Preprocessing and data reduction are key to reducing
bandwidth needs for handling outbound data, and are a fit for the Xilinx EPP
product line, including Zynq, he says.
Massively parallel computing-taking computing tasks and breaking them down
into constituent elements that can be processed concurrently-is the key to success,
Thompson recognizes. Perhaps the most powerful technology at our disposal is the
GPU, because its architecture specifically allows for a very high degree of parallel
processing. GE is deploying arrays of GPUs into the processing of large imaging
sensors to handle the huge amount of data coming in and to detect and track items
of interest in systems that are much smaller than would be the case with generalpurpose processors. NVIDIAs latest-generation Kepler GPUs, for example, feature
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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

384 cores; thats like having 384 processors working in tandem, yet they occupy the
space of just a single processor.
Data compression technology also holds promise in reducing the size of sensoracquired data files. GE engineers are using compact image compression devices to
reduce sensor data to the point where it can fit a restricted bandwidth data link on
small platforms, Thompson reveals. We have replicated the functionality of large
racks of commercial servers on the ground in compact systems that can fly, yet are
software compatible with the ground-based systems and are powerful enough to
fuse the data from different modalities.
Safety and security

Downed UAVs, although unfortunate events, demonstrate the importance of

safety features in unmanned systems, White recognizes. Safety and reliability
are imperative to the future success and exploitation of UAV technology.
Secure communications links are vital for the UAV, and a continued area of
focus for Xilinx.
Single event upset (SEU) must definitely be considered in any avionics system,
White recommends. At UAV altitudes, the upset rate is hundreds of times greater
than at sea-level. It is critical to consider this when designing for safety and
performance. Xilinx offers radiation testing, publicly available data, and supported
SEU mitigation IP and tools to aid systems designers. It is absolutely imperative
to address the SEU issue early in the design cycle to ensure that the system is
architected for maximum performance and availability. If you wait until the end, you
may end up with a sub-par system design.
The move to network-centric systems-for example, the VICTORY architectureand use of cloud processing is leading to a need for much better network security
in the field, Thompson explains. Demand for firewalls and routers with intrusion
detection and prevention is increasing. To meet such needs, GE entered into
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Unmanned, sensor-laden, and ubiquitous

a relationship with Juniper Networks, and introduced the RTR8GE secure

battlefield router.
Future functionality

Persistent situational awareness provides a knowledge advantage and validates the

value of unmanned aircraft, says Ames. Sensors with wider areas, faster processing,
and on-board processing to save bandwidth-thats the future.
The proliferation of Intel CPUs in DSP systems is bringing software programming
environments, tools, and middleware used in the commercial markets to embedded
sensor processing, Strod says. Applications written on a software stack will much
more easily port to future processors in a tech refresh, and there will be much more
sharing between programs, lowering cost and increasing the pace of innovation.
Unmanned sensors will be an area of both evolution and revolution over the next
10 to 15 years, Monticciolo says. Youre going to be able to use the advances of
electronics to extract more information out of the environment, process it, and bring
it onto the ground.

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 9, 2015

Sonar signal processing

job using commercial
off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment
goes to Lockheed Martin
By John Keller, Editor

WASHINGTON, 9 MARCH 2015. Sonar signal processing experts at Lockheed Martin

Corp. will upgrade sonar signal processing capability in six U.S. Navy submarines
under terms of a $29.2 million contract modification announced Friday.
Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington are asking experts
at the Lockheed Martin Mission System sand Training segment in Manassas, Va.,
to provide purchase Technology Insertion (TI14) system upgrades for six ships
including spares and
pre-cable kits, as part
of the Acoustics-Rapid
COTS Insertion
(A-RCI) program.
A-RCI is a sonar
system that integrates
and improves towed
array, hull array, sphere
array, and other ship
sensor processing,
through rapid insertion
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Sonar signal processing job using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment

of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software, such as commercial

blade servers.
The contract modification part of an original potential $2 billion contract
awarded to Lockheed Martin in January 2011 is for A-RCI and common
acoustics processing for the U.S. submarine fleet and for foreign military sales. The
six submarines involved in this sonar signal processing contract modification were
not specified.
For the past 17 years Lockheed Martin sonar experts have been harvesting the most
advanced and most promising COTS digital signal processing (DSP) equipment
from embedded servers, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), to powerful
general-purpose processors) to achieve the most advanced submarine sonar
signal processing at the most reasonable cost.
The A-RCI program is among the most visible U.S. military acknowledgements that
COTS technology delivers the most capability at the least cost for defense-related
embedded digital signal processing technology.
The A-RCI program, as its name suggests, seeks to move the latest COTS DSP
technology into submarine signal processing systems aboard Virginia-, Seawolf-,
and Los Angeles-class fast attack submarines, as well as aboard Ohio-class
missile submarines on a regular basis to keep pace with commercial embedded
computing developments.
A-RCI is an open-architecture sonar system that Navy officials intend to
maintain an advantage in acoustic detection of threat submarines, using legacy
sonar sensors. The program regularly refreshes central processors with COTS
computer technology and software. A-RCI processors handle data from the
submarines spherical array, hull array, wide aperture array, high-frequency arrays,
and towed arrays.
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An open-systems architecture makes the most of commercial processing

development, and enables submarine signal processing systems to use complex
algorithms that Navy-developed sonar systems such as the AN/BSY-1 and AN/
BSY-2 systems cannot not use.
Using COTS technology enables onboard computing power to grow at nearly the
same rate as commercial industry, and facilitates regular updates to submarine
sonar-processing software and hardware with minimal disruption to submarine
scheduling, Navy officials say.
On this contract modification Lockheed Martin will do the work in Manassas, Va.
and Clearwater, Fla., and should be finished by September 2018.
For more information contact Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training
online at http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/mst.html, or Naval Sea Systems
Command at www.navsea.navy.mil.

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JANUARY 1, 2012

Advanced military
night-vision sensors rely on
sensor fusion, networking,
and signal processing
By John Keller

MAJOR TRENDS TODAY in military

night-vision sensors involve

enhancing legacy analog lightintensification tube technology,
moving light-amplification
sensors into the digital realm,
blending digital and analog
night-vision sensors, and
finally, using digital networking
technology to make real-time,
night-vision battlefield imagery
available to the fighting forces
that need it most.
Tube-based, light-amplification technology for
military night vision has been available since the
Vietnam War era, but over the decades systems
designers have made unprecedented enhancements
to this technology.

Night-vision goggles from

ITT Exelis blend lightintensification analog
technology with digital
long-wave infrared to detect
humans hidden in cover.

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Sonar signal processing job using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment

Analog tubes represent known and mature night-vision solutions, and are among
the most power-efficient night-vision sensors in the U.S. inventory, say officials of
longtime analog tube practitioner ITT Exelis Night Vision in Roanoke, Va.
We are not using a low-light-level CMOS or other kind of digital imageintensification device in our goggle, but you can get the same result using the
technology we have available today, explains Dave Smith, vice president and
program manager at ITT Exelis Night Vision. Digital night-vision sensors, he says,
are huge power draws for a true digital goggle.
Instead, ITT Exelis designers couple the latest analog light-intensification
technology with digital sensors, such as long-wave infrared (LWIR) sensors, not
only to make the most of each sensors strengths and weaknesses, but also to enable
users to save battery power by using digital sensors only when necessary.
ITT Exelis designers are developing military night-vision goggles that not only blend
different kinds of sensors, but that also can tap into digital networks that transform
the wearer from a stand-alone sensor to where they are a network node on the
battlefield, Smith says.
ITT Exelis uses analog-to-digital conversion technology to digitize imagery from
image-intensification night-vision goggles so that users can send and receive digital
information over existing battlefield networks. They can share information from
other sources, such as UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] and digital maps, within
the squad level, up to higher commands, and are able to be part of that battlefield
network, Smith says.
Other companies, however, are making the move into all-digital, low-light nightvision sensors. Electro-optics experts at BAE Systems OASYS in Manchester,
N.H., are building a solid-state, silicon-based sensor tuned to be sensitive in low

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Sonar signal processing job using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment

light. Think of it as a night-vision digital camera that shows video in real time, says
Vadim Plotsker, president of BAE Systems OASYS.
Starting with digital imagery from low-light sensors will enable military forces to
make the move easily to the next generation of night-vision systems, he says. We
can take digital information from low-light and digital information from infrared,
and then combine them, Plotsker says. Imagine the possibilities if you are in the
digital world.
BAE Systems OASYS engineers are developing night-vision sensors that combine
digital, light-intensification sensors with long-wave and short-wave infrared (SWIR)
sensors to enable warfighters to detect threats and targets in difficult conditions.
A lot of work is going on that looks at additional information you might be able to
achieve by fusing different types of night-vision and low-light-level images, such
as near-IR, LWIR, and SWIR, says Lisa Aucoin, product line director for soldier
solutions at BAE Systems Electronic Systems in Nashua, N.H.
A low-light sensor, for example, might be best for seeing through glass windows,
which infrared sensors cannot penetrate, Plotsker explains. Blending low-light
sensors with long-wave infrared, he continues, might enable warfighters to
detect humans, animals, and vehicles quickly against a cool background. SWIR
sensors, on the other hand, are better than low-light sensors at detecting targets
hidden in foliage.
Military operations in the desert have helped systems designers appreciate the
challenges of nighttime operations against hot backgrounds, which put longwave IR sensors at a disadvantageparticularly when operating at long ranges.
In these applications, atmospheric distortion can degrade imagery in the same
way that mirages in the desert can degrade the performance of long-range,
visible-light cameras.
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Sonar signal processing job using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment

We are deploying technology that eliminates that distortion with high-power

signal processing to determine which pixel is real and which is caused by this
shimmer, explains Greg Catherine, director of technology integration at General
Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in Fairfax, Va.

22 Military & Aerospace Electronics SPECIAL REPORT