BAA-AFRL-RQKS-2016-0002-Atch5.pdf

STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES (SOO)

Research and Development of Electro-Optical and Radio-Frequency Sensors (RADERS)

I. Background

The Multispectral Sensing & Detection Division (RYM), Sensors Directorate (RY), Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), conducts research in the following areas:

1) Antenna Technologies and Electromagnetic Scattering

2) Electro-optic and Infrared Sensor Technology (EO/IR)

3) Sensor Information Processing and Integration

4) Novel EO/IR, Spectral and Common Aperture EO/Radio Frequency (RF)

Hardware and Algorithms

5) Waveform Phenomenology, Design and Applications

6) Ultra-Sensitive Receivers for Signals Intelligence

7) Long Range Day/Night Hyperspectral Imaging Research

8) Standoff High Resolution Imaging

9) Infrared Search and Track Technology

10) Passive Concept Exploration

11) Laser Radar Imaging, Systems, Components, and Applications

12) RF Sensor Systems Technology

The goal of this research in the aforementioned technologies to enhance the transmission of signals and collection of information in the electromagnetic spectrum in adverse and changing environments in order to maintain a military advantage in land, air and space areas of engagement.

II. Description of Effort

The primary research interests are described in detail below.

1. Antenna Technologies and Electromagnetic Scattering The objective of this research is to advance antenna and electromagnetic technology for air, ground and space-based applications like radar, communications, satellite operations, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems (ISR) from HF to W-Band frequencies. Additionally, the objective of this research is to (a) advance the field of detection, tracking, and fusion of data of difficult targets in rapidly varying environments utilizing electromagnetic scattering theory and situational awareness methodologies for characterization of plasma turbulence impacts to hypersonic sensors and Over-the- Horizon radars (OTHR); (b) develop efficient schemes to overcome communication blackout in plasmas, and develop architectures and algorithms for ISR, navigation, communications, and situational awareness.

This topic specifically addresses development of new concepts and improvements in the following areas:

(a) The state-of-the-art of wideband and multiband, lightweight, planar and conformal phased array antennas operating at various power densities.

(b) Antennas having the gain performance of conventional antennas in a significantly smaller physical space to reduce antenna size, weight, and co-site interference, for applications from VHF through W-band.

(c) Electromagnetic (EM) research in radiating, wave guiding, wave transforming, and electromagnetically-responsive structures and materials, with emphasis on integration of antennas and radiating structures with aircraft.

(d) Study and mitigation of issues faced by sensors aboard hypersonic vehicles resultant from high temperature flows, dense plasma sheathes, and cumulative heating of airframes, which adversely affects the performance of all on-board sensor systems such as GPS, telemetry, communication, command and control, radar, LIDAR, and electro-optical sensors to varying degrees.

(e) New approaches to analyze the adverse effects of plasma turbulence on OTHR performance in the mid-latitude ionosphere.

(f) The development of new capabilities of OTHR to detect, track, and fuse data of difficult targets in varying environments. Recent satellite data has revealed that energetic plasma flows in the plasmapause region of the earth’s ionosphere (namely, the sub-auroral ion drifts [SAID] and sub-auroral polarization streams [SAPS]) are the source of plasma turbulence in the mid-latitude F-region. Since the SAID/SAPS region contains short-scale plasma waves and meso-scale coherent structures, high frequency (HF) electromagnetic wave propagation cannot be described by the traditional theories of propagation theory using random irregularities.

(g) New concepts for the use of the parametric antenna in the ionospheric plasma region of the atmosphere. Such antennas are capable of exciting electromagnetic radiation fields, specifically the creation of whistler waves generated at the very low frequency (VLF) range, which are also capable of propagating large distances away from the source region.

(h) Developing theoretical and computational methods in the areas of modeling radar clutter in a diversity of environments and modeling clutter and detection in the following general areas of interest: target detection, geophysical remote sensing, weapon systems, and electromagnetic/optical characterizations of composite and nanophotonic materials.

2. Electro-optic (EO) and Infrared Sensor Technology The objective of this research is to promote novel sensors, sensor technologies and algorithms for target sensing in general, and detection, recognition and tracking in particular. This can be done by any EO/IR waveband, phenomenology permitting.

Modalities include, but are not limited to, thermal imaging, single-aperture EO/RF sensing, hyper- and multispectral sensing.

3. Sensor Information Processing and Integration

This topic addresses new approaches to the integration and understanding of massive amounts of data coming from diverse sensor platforms with the goal of developing actionable intelligence and achieving autonomous or semi-autonomous situation awareness. The fundamental difficulties include modeling and algorithms development for distributed active/passive sensing, computational complexity, massive amounts of disparate information, the need to integrate human and sensory input, cultural backgrounds, and the ability to identify and seek missing information.

Specific areas of interest include:

(a) Robust detection, tracking, imaging and navigation using multiple sensor platforms.

(b) Cognitively-inspired methods for detection, data integration, and tracking.

(c) Integration of human and sensory inputs.

(d) Learning abstract concepts from sensor data.

(e) Situation modeling and learning.

(f) “Big data” methodologies.

(g) Adaptive sensing techniques for improved radar detection and tracking.

(h) Waveform design, optimization, and selection in contested/congested spectrum.

(i) Distributed active/passive sensing for congested and contested environments.

(j) Open architectures for RF systems.

(k) Required sensor resource management.

(l) Management of multi-function, multi-spectral sensing and effects.

4. Novel EO/IR, Spectral and Common Aperture EO/RF Hardware and

Algorithms This topic addresses the development of innovative hardware and algorithms to detect low-signal targets in noisy and heavily cluttered environments using EO, IR, hyperspectral, multispectral, and common-aperture EO/RF sensors. Of great importance is leveraging system benefits or information advantanges yielded by multispectral (EO/RF) approaches. Included in this area are new ideas for design and development of sensors, focal plane arrays (FPA), hybrid FPAs and infrared cameras for high-resolution, low-power, lightweight, low-cost, portable midwave and longwave infrared sensing.

Specific areas of interest include:

(a) High-temperature operation.

(b) Multispectral-sensing.

(c) Tunable wavelength devices.

(d) Algorithms using a minimal number of bands for detection.

(e) Computational intelligence methods for target detection and identification.

(f) Data fusion methods for common EO/RF apertures.

(g) Algorithms to help define engineered focal plane characteristics prior to design, in order to maximize detection of pre-defined target sets.

(h) Sparsity-based hardware and algorithms.

(i) Computational imaging hardware and algorithms.

5. Waveform Phenomenology, Design and Applications This topic addresses the development of innovative techniques concentrated on identifying and capitalizing on signal phenomenology that gives rise to new and difficult-to-detect RF waveform. Waveform agility is the foundation of this research which takes advantage of all possible degrees of freedom, and explores noise-like waveforms, interference-tolerant waveforms, and low probability of intercept, low probability of detection, and low-probability of exploitation (LPI/LPD/LPE) waveforms.

Specific areas of interest include:

(a) Detection, tracking and imaging multi-mode, multi-function techniques supporting distributed processing.

(b) Robust alternative position/navigation/timing technologies.

(c) Joint radar/ communications waveforms.

(d) Combined synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and ground moving target indication (GMTI) in challenging clutter environments.

(e) Adaptive radar and game theoretic decision making for cognitive sensing and transmit pulse optimization.

(f) Waveform design for distributed sensor platform synchronization.

6. Ultra-Sensitive Receivers for Signals Intelligence This topic addresses comprehending the physics-based relationship between a receiver noise floor and sensitivity, parameters such as temperature and bandwidth should offer a multi-dimensional representation of signal to noise (SNR) dynamic range, and in the case of complex signals of interest, instantaneous dynamic range (IDR). This is often defined as the measurement of a weak signal in the presence of a strong one or as a signal buried far below a dense RF interference background.

Innovations in receiver architectures will be required as well as novel methods for characterizing signals as a function of frequency separation. Design of Experiments using physical modeling and simulation tools is desired in developing RF receiver architectures and appropriate statistical analysis. The formulation of RF laboratory experiments for prototyping of ultra-sensitive receiver sub-systems integrated with beam-forming antenna/aperture assemblies for future defense applications is needed. Recently completed research at AFRL has revealed opportunities for the development of non-traditional RF receiver architectures which bridge quantum physics and RF technologies as a multidisciplinary area to address fundamental limitations (e.g., sampling jitter, thermal noise, Nyquist/Shannon theorem limitations) to more efficiently convert a signal from the RF to an encoded digital format. The long-term research goal is to enable a RF receiver capable of sequential search and analysis modes under dense/complex signal conditions to enable revolutionary sensor payloads.

7. Long Range Day/Night Hyperspectral Imaging Research

The objective of this research is to develop day/night hyperspectral component technologies for enhanced material detection and identification at extended ranges, including the design and manufacture of the enabling component technologies (cryocoolers, FPAs, spectrometers) as well as sensor system design trades and development for airborne flight demonstrations of the integrated component technologies. Includes signal processing and algorithm development to keep up with the phenomenology and modeling required to operate and automatically detect and ID targets at extended ranges.

8. Standoff High Resolution Imaging

The objective of this research is to advance the field of long range imaging to achieve current resolutions at double the range, and to bring mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) imaging performance up to current EO capability in order to access high resolution motion imagery in A2/AD engagements. The approach uses high performance components for EO and MWIR including large-format high operating temperature imaging/video arrays, reduced detector size and high speed, low noise sampling and readout. Developing and applying advanced techniques and algorithms to achieve diffraction limited performance from slightly modified systems is of interest.

9. Infrared Search and Track Technology

The objective of this research is to develop an advanced long range and wide field of view staring infrared search and track (IRST) system that provides state-of-the-art performance. Currently fielded IRST systems are based on longwave scanning sensors where typical performance is dictated by the scan dwell time and revisit rate. An improved staring system would allow operation at video rates, giving faster track initiation.

This research area potentially leverages the latest technology of large infrared focal plane arrays (FPAs) with High Operating Temperature (HOT) detectors to eliminate a large cooler thus reducing system size and weight, small pixel pitch which provide better image resolution, and digital read out integrated circuits ROICs versus analog. The challenge is to provide range resolution to aid in a robust, precise weapons quality track.

The objective is to develop an IRST conceptual design that supports the generation of fire control solutions at range along clear atmospheric paths and in cluttered air-to-air and air-to-ground environments with a low false alarm rate while staring over the entire system field of regard. The trade space to be considered includes current and future advancements in large format FPAs, innovative read-out architectures, sensor chip assembly designs, innovative wide field of view (WFOV) optical designs, and advanced processing methods for target detection/tracking at range and in clutter that fully exploit the high frame rate advantages of a staring system.

Research should take into account total system life cycle costs and identify alternatives to high cost, high failure rate and high maintenance items such as thermal infrared transparent conformal window materials. Additionally, basic algorithms and supporting processing architecture suitable for performance validation and verification of the system and target detection including tracking and clutter rejection algorithms will be investigated and evaluated.

10. Passive Concept Exploration The objective of this research is to develop/apply new novel EO passive sensing technologies to difficult Air Force sensing problems to find revolutionary solutions.

Areas of interest include:

(a) Novel optics (large aperture gradient index, waveguide, freeform).

(b) High performance fast framing Near IR cameras.

(c) Novel information fusion approaches.

(d) Computational imaging/compressive sensing.

(e) FPAs with gain/amplification, and other innovations.

(f) New, novel passive EO/IR sensor observables and phenomenology for detecting critical mobile target in A2/AD environments

(g) Low size, weight, power and cost EO/IR sensors for small and long range

UAVs.

11. Laser Radar Imaging, Systems, Components, and Applications This objective of this research is to develop innovative laser radar based approaches for ISR, precision attack and air-to-air engagements. This may include new techniques, phenomenologies, hardware and algorithms to detect, track and especially identify difficult air and ground targets in challenging environments.

Included in this area are new ideas for fundamental measurement concepts, design and development of sensors, active focal plane arrays (FPA) with integrated read out integrated circuits (ROICs) as well as flight laser systems and components.

Both direct detection and coherent ladar systems are of interest including but not limited to 1-D, 3D, synthetic aperture, holographic aperture and vibration imaging modes.

Specific system areas of interest include:

(a) Low C-SWaP approaches for all modes.

(b) High performance 3-D/1-D arrays for long range sensing.

(c) Coherent detector arrays.

(d) Agile flight laser sources.

(e) High power fiber distribution.

(f) Advanced image formation algorithms.

(g) Real-time ladar signal processing

(h) AiTR features and algorithms.

(i) Data fusion methods for combined Ladar/EO/RF operations

(j) Methods for atmospheric turbulence metrology and mitigation over long air-to-air and air-to-ground path.

(k) New concepts, implementations, phenomenology or algorithms in laser based sensing.

12. RF Sensor Systems Technology This research investigates evolutionary and revolutionary improvements to RF sensing systems for situational awareness and targeting applications. Active (monostatic) radar is the traditional workhorse for long-range surveillance and all-weather targeting. Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) is central in understanding adversary sensing capabilities and deployments by measuring their RF emissions.

Modern Integrated Air Defense systems are forcing blue sensing platforms farther back, leading to the current emphasis on learning how to operate in an Anti- Access/Area Denied (A2/AD) environment. The agility of these advanced IADS is one factor driving SIGINT to be done on faster time scales, becoming ever closer to the tactical timescales required by Electronic Support Measures (ESM) receivers. While monostatic radar provides its own transmitter, and SIGINT collects information on emitters, bistatic radars separate the transmitter from the receiver while passive radars use emitters already operating in the environment.

Bistatic and passive radar is thus seen to occupy a middle ground between monostatic radar and SIGINT, and is a fertile area for investigation of multifunction RF systems.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

(a) Multifunction RF systems employed for radar, SIGINT, communications, and electronic attack.

(b) Monostatic radar for surveillance, target identification, and targeting.

(c) Increased range for existing and new monostatic radar systems.

(d) SIGINT systems.

(e) Bistatic and multistatic radar systems and concepts, including distributed radar.

III. Deliverables

See Contract Data Requirements List (CDRLs), Attachment 4 of the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for possible delivery items. The attached CDRL document is an example for planning purposes and each resulting award shall have its own tailored CDRL package.

IV. OPSEC

General Operations Security (OPSEC) procedures, policies and awareness are required in an effort to reduce program vulnerability from successful adversary collection and exploitation of critical information. OPSEC will be applied throughout the life cycle of the contract. The Critical Information List (CIL) will be provided upon request by RYOY Information Protection Office.

While working on the government installation, OPSEC guidance will be provided by the RYOY Information Protection Office.