Influence of Focal Plane Array Design Parameters on Future Automatic TargetRecognizer Performance

摘要

Automatic cuers and recognizers have been included in many recent weapons systemsdesigns. In systems such as the Comanche helicopter a successful cuer/recognizer will significantly reduce crew workloads and will shorten acquisition timelines considerably. Focal plane array development has matured to the point where a new generation of common detector modules are being built under the IRFPA program. In the initial phases of the program it became important to take a look at different proposed array configurations, and to try to draw conclusions about the resulting image quality and impact that would have on future automatic target recognizer performance. The focus of this investigation has been the impact of several key FPA parameters on ATh performance. The experimental design was chosen to be independent of specific ATh algorithms and focused on the amount of image degradation and information loss attributable to a particular FPA design change. Sensor parameters studied included detector size, detector geometry, noise, detector response nonuniformity, and array sampling effects. Range dependence of the image quality degradation due to each of the sensor parameters is presented. (KAR) P. 3.