SCITEC INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF151-081

Description

ABSTRACT:The advent of wide area Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI) and Overhead Persistent InfraRed (OPIR) systems V particularly those with broad area coverage and staring focal planes V heightened the call for persistent surveillance for DoD and intelligence community (IC) missions. Persistence allows warfighters to monitor areas of interest and catch fleeting events of tactical importance, the missile defense community to better engage threats through higher fidelity state vectors, and the intelligence community to dwell over high value targets. Prosecuting complex, fleeting and high value targets across an extended battlespace requires sensors of varying capability V temporal, spatial and sensitivity (radiometric, spectral). Multiple sensors, operating independently can satisfy more requirements. And multiple sensors operating as a system-of-systems through appropriate allocation and timely tipping and cueing, can maximize persistence. We propose to develop the Autonomous Cueing and Tipping of ISR and OPIR Networks tool (ACTION), a sensor-agnostic approach that semi-automates the tipping and cueing process to the maximum extent possible in order to optimize and speed the process to put OPIR and ISR sensors on targets of interest in time and with the right capability to contribute to the intelligence mission.BENEFIT:The Phase I effort will provide a proof of concept model and associated algorithms for OPIR-ISR tipping/cueing that will inform the path ahead for operational incorporation into community mission management tools. Ultimately, the proposed effort will produce several important results including: 1) Development of an OPIRISR tip-cue framework and prototype model to support development and performance testing of a prototype operational tipping & cueing application; 2) Definition of tipping-cueing business rules associated with sensor/target classes and mission scenarios to support multiple mission areas; 3) Development of tip-cue algorithms, applications, and optimization framework; and 4) Definition and prototyping of a user interface to support prototype development, scenario visualization, performance assessment, mission management, and tip-cue message oversight