C5ISR Modular Open System Architecture
Challenge ended
Description
Current ground vehicle platforms feature many different types of sensors for specific applications, including driver enhanced vision, 360-degree situational awareness, and active protection systems (APSs). As newer sensors are developed to provide novel and increased capabilities, integration and SWaP-C burdens will continue to increase unless sensor functionalities can be consolidated or sensor cost and power demands significantly reduced. APS is a pacing technology in the areas of sensing speed and real-time processing, and, as such, it provides an ideal platform for expanding into other mission areas. Active protection systems include the advanced capabilities required to detect, track, and defeat a large variety of threats through soft- and hard-kill methods. APSs typically employ several types of sensors distributed around the protected platform, including passive electro-optical (EO), active radars, and active EO infrared (IR). As part of their APS function, these sensors are actively searching for threats, providing a wealth of data at very high rates that could be used for other applications.
Overall Objective
• Objective 1. Using high-speed optical sensors, enable data processing to be performed with the required number of frames while still outputting visual data to human users with minimal latency. • Objective 2. Utilizing high-speed sensors to track high-speed objects such as missile threats and fast-flying UAVs, while using temporal change-detection and other processing to characterize objects in ways that cannot be done with slower frame rates. • Objective 3. Increasing data density, allowing for enhanced noise rejection, enabling a system that is more resistant to jamming and less susceptible to environmental degradation. • Objective 4. Leveraging different types of commercial technologies available at the chip level to pull data off the chips as quickly as possible, and, equally important, perform initial edge processing to enhance signal integrity, increase bandwidth, and expand specialized tasks.
Problem Statement
The overarching goal of the effort is to develop an open-architecture software-defined Modular Active Framework (MAF) integrated sensor suite that can be utilized across many functional areas. The initial testbed prototype(s) will focus on functions from situation awareness to target detection and tracking to automotive applications such as assisted parking and near-field obstacle (and personnel) avoidance. Exploring a number of sensor approaches within a MAF architecture will help to enable cost-effective approaches for many different applications. Within the effort, study, testing, and validation will be completed with various multi-use sensor approaches.