Army Rdt&E Budget Item Justification (R2 Exhibit)

By Department of Defense

Description
Government Reference Publication

Excerpt
Excerpt: A. Mission Description and Budget Item Justification. This Program Element (PE) researches, designs, and applies core night vision and electronic sensor technologies to improve the Army’s capability to operate in all battlefield conditions. The technologies funded in project H95 have potential to provide the Army with new, or enhanced, capabilities to see and target farther on the battlefield, operate in obscured conditions, and maintain a higher degree of situational awareness (SA). These technologies support Future Combat Systems (FCS), the Future Force, and, where feasible, exploit opportunities to enhance Current Force capabilities. Working in concert with Army Research Laboratory (ARL), this project will apply industry expertise in high volume, low cost electronic components and imaging systems to explore concepts for very low cost unattended ground sensors. This project will fund efforts that will determine the benefits of using fused long wave infrared (LWIR) and very near infrared (VNIR) imagery for the dismounted soldier in all day/night visibility conditions and research component technology for transition to future soldier systems. Techniques to be explored include: super resolution, non-uniformity correction, image fusion, analog to digital conversion, region of interest (windowing) and motion detection, all contained in a single chip, and low power electronics for both cooled and uncooled infrared. This project will fund efforts to perform research to dramatically reduce the time necessary to acquire targets, and collect intelligence data. Additional efforts include providing the capability to incorporate lightweight laser designators on small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) platforms and portable soldier systems, and research new infrared (IR) FPA technologies for both cooled, high performance IR FPAs and uncooled, low cost IR FPAs. Sensor models will be created to accomplish trade studies, performance predictions, and also support constructive simulation/wargaming for analysis of alternatives. In addition, this project will focus on sensor modeling and simulation technology maturation in critical areas such as; modeling target acquisition tasks of search, detection, recognition, and identification for currently inadequate representations in military operations in urban terrain, specific targets, and moving targets; modeling representations for advanced sensor technologies. Multispectral sensor simulations will support end-to-end predictive modeling and evaluation of new technologies in a virtual environment. This project will assess and evaluate laser materials to produce a covert ladar system. Project K90 funds Congressional special interest items.

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