NANOHMICS INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: N101-087

Description

A significant fraction of new battlefield instrumentation is based on lasers and the performance of directed energy weapons (DEW) has improved. Therefore, the susceptibility of modern weapon, reconnaissance, and surveillance systems in particular those with optical sensors is acute. Recent interest in protection of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and their sensor suites has become extremely important as the use of UAVs on the modern battlefield increases. There is currently no means of rapidly detecting radiation from laser-based DEW, determining the precise location of the source, and directing countermeasures to the potentially hazardous energy. The ability to rapidly scan a full hemisphere for potential threats would allow the UAV system to quickly take evasive action or engage optical sensor protection systems, or even to cue defensive systems. Nanohmics designed and built a novel, low-power consumption, low-cost optical system for integration on existing UAV platforms that has a hemispherical field of view. In this program phase, Nanohmics will extend this development to cover visible, SWIR, MWIR and LWIR wavelengths and interface the hardware to UAVs for flight testing. The combination of spectral signature and angle-of-arrival determination will be packaged in a compact sensor and designed for mounting on UAVs, USVs, ships, and other military aircraft and vehicles for laser threat analysis, situational awareness, and intelligence gathering.