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LADAR Discrimination Using Holographic Techniques

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Missile Defense Agency
Contract: N00178-04-C-3083
Agency Tracking Number: B041-020-1475
Amount: $99,307.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: MDA04-020
Solicitation Number: 2004.1
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2004
Award Year: 2004
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2004-05-14
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2004-11-13
Small Business Information
PO Box 5368
Huntsville, AL 35806
United States
DUNS: 121016096
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Enrico Poggio
 Chief Technical Officer
 (256) 716-0787
 ecp@dbresearch.net
Business Contact
 Eric Cochran
Title: Chief Financial Officer
Phone: (256) 716-0787
Email: ecochran@dbresearch.net
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

This effort proposes a unique LADAR system concept, based on holographic methods that can potentially enhance Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) discrimination performance The concept extends conventional holographic methods by exploiting modern beam forming and digital signal processing techniques, as well as advances in laser and photo detector technologies that may permit successful ballistic missile defense applications, particularly in the area of lethal target discrimination. Holographic images have the potential of providing added target features for discrimination that may not be obtainable from other types of LADAR images. In addition, since holographic imaging is a lens less process it may not require stringent a priori knowledge of target kinematic and dynamic properties, as is the case with, for example, focused range-Doppler imaging. The system envisioned would consist of a pulsed laser transmitter to illuminate the target, and a local reference laser in conjunction with a photo detector array to record both the amplitude and the phase of the target backscatter. Modern beam forming techniques, developed for RF applications, but extendable to this process, will be used to generate the images, while fine resolution digital signal processing methods, like the two dimensional Prony method, would be used to estimate useful target size, shape, configuration and motion parameters. These digital signal processing methods are also implemented to mitigate unreasonably large photo detector arrays that might be required when using conventional imaging generation algorithms for ballistic missile defense applications. This imaging system has the potential to provide useful target information in a few of the BMDS deployment phases The algorithm derived algorithms can be integrated into the current multisensor fusion Decision Architecture and or Discrimination Algorithm Suites developed by Project Hercules.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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