TARGETS

W.W. GAERTNER RESEARCH, INC. HAS DEVELOPED A VERY HIGH-SPEED 3D GRAPHICS SYSTEM FOR REAL-TIME TARGET SIMULATION AND WEAPONS TRAINING. IT IS NOW PROPOSED TO USE THIS SYSTEM TO COMPUTE 2D TEMPLATES FROM 3D MODELS OF THE MOST CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF TYPICAL TARGETS, AND TO EXECUTE A TEMPLATE-MATCHING ALGORITHM BETWEEN THESE SYNTHETIC TEMPLATES AND PARTIAL VIEWS OF SEMIOBSCURED TARGETS CAPTURED ON A FRAME FROM AN IR, LLTV OR DAYLIGHT MONOCHROME OR COLOR CAMERA. THE SPEED OF THE NEW TEMPLATE GENERATION AND MATCHING HARDWARE IS SO HIGH THAT IT SHOULD ALLOW THE EXECUTION OF THE TARGET RECOGNITION PROCESS IN NEAR-REAL TIME, A GOAL WHICH WOULD NOT BE REALISTIC WITHOUT THE EXISTENCE OF THE ABOVE W.W. GAERTNER RESEARCH, INC. SUPER HIGH-SPEED GRAPHICS SYSTEM. THE OUTPUT FROM THE SYSTEM WOULD BE A TARGET IDENTIFICATION, RANGE AND DIRECTION PLUS A STATISTICAL MEASURE OF THE CONFIDENCE IN THE IDENTIFICATION. IT IS PROPOSED UNDER PHASE I TO IMPLEMENT A BASIC DEMONSTRATON OF THE CONCEPT USING THE W.W. GAERTNER RESEARCH, INC. IN-HOUSE GRAPHICS AND IMAGE PROCESSING SYSTEM. GIVEN SUCCESS, FULL-FLEDGED DEVELOPMENT COULD BE CARRIED OUT UNDER PHASE II.