초록 ▼

Guided airborne weapons fired in a salvo against multiple targets are deconflicted by performing a scene correlation of multiple cued targets to TLOs acquired by the seeker's imaging sensor to track a target package. If the weapon is provided with a multimode seeker, target cues for a common designa

Guided airborne weapons fired in a salvo against multiple targets are deconflicted by performing a scene correlation of multiple cued targets to TLOs acquired by the seeker's imaging sensor to track a target package. If the weapon is provided with a multimode seeker, target cues for a common designated target and a common SAL code are provided to each weapon. Each weapon uses its SAL sensor to detect and process a SAL return to verify the common SAL code and augment their scene correlations by fixing the TLO track file of the common designated target to the cued track file associated with the designated target. At terminal, each weapon commits to a particular target by referencing its assigned target to the tracked target package. Correlation to multiple targets in the target package makes the acquisition and tracking process more robust and reduces targeting ambiguity. Furthermore, a single SAL designation can improve the tracking of all the weapons to their respective targets.

대표청구항 ▼

1. A method of deconflicting a salvo of airborne weapons, comprising: passing respective target packages to a plurality of airborne weapons including imaging sensors on one or more launch platforms, each said target package including individual target cues of initial position, velocity and uncertain

1. A method of deconflicting a salvo of airborne weapons, comprising: passing respective target packages to a plurality of airborne weapons including imaging sensors on one or more launch platforms, each said target package including individual target cues of initial position, velocity and uncertainty estimates for a plurality of targets and a target ID for the weapon;launching a salvo of said airborne weapons at a range to a target at which the weapon's imaging sensors are unable to acquire the targets;during flight of each airborne weapon, propagating a cued track file for each individual target cue in its target package to maintain current estimates of each target's position, velocity, and uncertainty volume;using the imaging sensor to image a search volume to acquire target like objects (TLOs) and propagate TLO track files; andperforming a scene correlation of the cued track files to the TLO track files to acquire and track the target package; andat terminal, referencing each weapon's target ID to the tracked target package to commit each weapon to a particular target. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein one uniform target package including individual target cues for all of the targets is passed to each of the weapons. 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the target packages include individual target cues for targets to which no weapon is assigned. 4. The method of claim 1, wherein each airborne weapon comprises a non-imaging semi-active laser (SAL) sensor, said target packages including target cues including a common SAL code for a common designated target, further comprising: said airborne weapons using their SAL sensors to detect and process a SAL return to verify the common SAL code and augment their scene correlations by fixing the TLO track file of the common designated target to the cued track file associated with the designated target ID. 5. The method of claim 4, wherein at least one said weapon is assigned to commit to the common designated weapon. 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the target cues for the common designated target comprise a target ID that identities a particular target from among the plurality of targets. 7. The method of claim 5, wherein the target cues for the common designated target comprise a target ID that identities any target from among the plurality of targets. 8. The method of claim 5, wherein said target packages include only a single common SAL code for a single common designated target. 9. The method of claim 4, wherein no weapon is assigned to the designated target. 10. The method of claim 9, further comprising each said weapon implementing logic that prevents the weapon from committing to the designated target. 11. The method of claim 4, wherein each said target package includes only the individual cues for the designated target and the assigned target for that weapon. 12. The method of claim 1, wherein the imaging sensor images a search volume that spans the combined uncertainty volumes of the targets in the target package to acquire target like objects (TLOs). 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the imaging sensor has an instantaneous field of view (FOV) that is smaller than the search volume, further comprising steering the imaging sensor's instantaneous FOV over the search volume. 14. The method of claim 1, wherein the weapons' perform the scene correlation by: a) defining a template comprising a plurality of nodes that map each of the cued track files in the target package to an assigned target;b) selecting a permutation that assigns a TLO track file to each node in the template;c) computing a cost function between the multiple cued and TLO track files in the template for the permutation;d) ranking the permutation based on the cost function;e) repeating steps b through d for different permutations until the weapon is within a commit range; andf) at terminal, committing to the assigned target from the highest ranked permutation. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the cost function is a metric of distances between the cued and TLO track files at each node in the template. 16. The method of claim 14, wherein the relative position of the nodes in the template is constrained by the relative positions of the cued track files, wherein said cost function is a weighted sum of a first metric associated with a best-fit of the template to the TLO track files in the permutation and a second metric associated with shift of the template from absolute positions of the cued track files to achieve the best-fit. 17. The method of claim 14, wherein the weapon determines if the selected permutation is valid by verifying whether the TLO track file assigned to a node is within the uncertainty volume of the cued track file for that node. 18. The method of claim 14, wherein the individual cues comprise cued target discriminators, said imaging sensor's estimating TLO discriminators, further comprising weighting the cost function based on a similarity of the TLO discriminators to the cued target discriminators. 19. A method of deconflicting a salvo of airborne weapons, comprising: passing respective target packages to a plurality of airborne weapons on one or more launch platforms, each said weapon comprising a multimode seeker including an imaging sensor and a SAL sensor, each said target package including individual target cues of initial position, velocity and uncertainty estimates for a plurality of targets of which one is a common designated target, a common SAL code and a target ID for the weapon;launching a salvo of said airborne weapons at a range to a target at which the weapon's imaging sensors are unable to acquire the targets;during flight of each airborne weapon, propagating a cued track file for each individual target cue in the target package to maintain current estimates of each target's position, velocity, and uncertainty volume;using the imaging sensor to image a search volume to acquire target like objects (TLOs) and propagate TLO track files; andperforming a scene correlation of the cued track files to the TLO track files to acquire and track the target package;using the SAL sensor to detect and process a SAL return to verify the common SAL code and augment their scene correlations by fixing the TLO track file of the common designated target to the cued track file associated with the designated target ID; andat terminal, referencing each weapon's target ID to the augmented scene correlation of the target package to commit each weapon to a particular target. 20. The method of claim 19, wherein one uniform target package including individual target cues for all of the targets is passed to each of the weapons. 21. The method of claim 19, wherein each said target package includes only the individual cues for the designated target and the assigned target for that weapon. 22. The method of claim 19, wherein the imaging sensor images a search volume that spans the combined uncertainty volumes of the targets in the target package to acquire target like objects (TLOs). 23. The method of claim 19, wherein the weapons' perform the scene correlation by: a) defining a template comprising a plurality of nodes that map each of the cued track files in the target package to an assigned target;b) determining if a verified SAL return is present, if no, selecting a permutation that assigns a TLO track file to each node in the template; andif yes, fixing the TLO track file of the common designated target to the node assigned to the cued track file of the designated target ID and selecting a permutation that assigns a TLO track file to each of the remaining nodes in the template;c) computing a cost function between the multiple cued and TLO track files in the template for the permutation;d) ranking the permutation based on the cost function;e) repeating steps b through d for different permutations until the weapon is within a commit range; andf) at terminal, committing to the assigned target from the highest ranked permutation. 24. The method of claim 23, wherein the relative position of the nodes in the template is constrained by the relative positions of the cued track files, wherein said cost unction is a weighted sum of a first metric associated with a best-fit of the template to the TLO track files in the permutation and a second metric associated with shift of the template from absolute positions of the cued track files to achieve the best-fit. 25. A method of deconflicting a salvo of airborne weapons, comprising: passing a uniform target package to a plurality of airborne weapons on one or more launch platforms, each said weapon comprising a multimode seeker including an imaging sensor and a SAL sensor, said uniform target package including individual target cues of initial position, velocity and uncertainty estimates for a plurality of targets of which one is a common designated target, a common SAL code and a target ID for the weapon;launching a salvo of said airborne weapons at a range to a target at which the weapon's imaging sensors are unable to acquire the targets;during flight of each airborne weapon, propagating a cued track file for each individual target cue in the target package to maintain current estimates of each target's position, velocity, and uncertainty volume;using the imaging sensor to image a search volume of the combined uncertainty volumes of the targets in the target package to acquire target like objects (TLOs) and propagate TLO track files; andperforming a scene correlation of a template comprising nodes of the cued track files to the TLO track files to acquire and track the target package;using the SAL sensor to detect and process a SAL return to verify the common SAL code and augment their scene correlations by fixing the TLO track file of the common designated target to the cued track file associated with the designated target ID; andat terminal, referencing each weapon's target ID to the augmented scene correlation of the target package to commit each weapon to a particular target.