General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) and BAE Systems are attempting to fuse synthetic- aperture radar (SAR) imagery with electro-optical data following initial flight tests of a Lynx SAR payload aboard a US Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16 at Eglin AFB, Florida.
The integration effort, which marks the first time a derivative of GA-ASI's APY-8 Lynx SAR has been flown on a high-speed aircraft, is aimed at enhancing target detection and geo-location for both the USAF and Air National Guard, the companies say. Since the first flight of the modified BAE reconnaissance pod in April "we have been performing joint post-mission analysis, processing, data exploitation and fusion efforts", says GA-ASI.
The integration of all-weather SAR is expected to dramatically expand the capabilities of the BAE theatre airborne reconnaissance system. Aside from electro- optical/infrared-SAR fusion, GA-ASI says current planned capabilities for the integrated pod include "geo-registration, automatic target recognition, single- and multi-pass detection, ground moving-target indication [GMTI], GMTI tracker and wide-area search."
GA-ASI, which originally developed the Lynx with the US Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories, says the radar-related hardware in the combined pod weighs around 64kg (140lb) - close to the target achieved with the lightweight sensors developed for unmanned air vehicles. The pod-based system's gimbal assembly weighs around 28kg and the radar electronics - which generate the radar signals, control the system, process the data and transform it into an image - around 33kg. A GPS receiver and related cabling adds around 3kg.
"A total of 74 images were collected and processed by the team, including a mix of high-resolution spot images, as well as wide field-of-view images at various resolutions," the company says.
Source: Flight International
