Forum: F-35 Lightning II

Picked up this cool Youtube post by AW's Graham Warwick:

F-35 JSF infrared sensor tracks rocket launch

Quote:

Northrop Grumman video showing how its distributed-aperture sensor (DAS) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter tracked SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle flight during a test flight of the sensor system on the company's BAC One-Eleven testbed. DAS rpoivies a 360-deg view round the F-35 for missile warning, traget tracking and navigation, The video has been magnified 10 times. DAS detects and tracks the rocket at horizon-break without the aid of external cues, then continuously tracks the rocket through first-stage burnout, second-stage ignition, across boundaries between DAS sensors, and through the rocket's second-stage burnout at a distance of more than 800 miles. The video also shows the DAS detecting and tracking the rocket's first-stage re-entry.

See also: Northrop Grumman Distributed Aperture System (DAS) for F-35 Demonstrates Ballistic Missile Defense Capabilities

B. Bolsøy
Oslo

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Last edited by spazsinbad on Nov 03, 2010 - 12:24 AM; edited 2 times in total

energo, thanks for video link. However other link (below) does not work?

http://www.irconnect.com/noc/press/page ... l?d=200739

EDIT: Is a subscription required? Otherwise linkee noworkee in IE9BETA or FirFoxie.

EDIT: The IRconnect does not work so I went here (amongst many other possibilities):

http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/solut ... targeting/

Worked for me.

Quote:

The video has been magnified 10 times. DAS detects and tracks the rocket at horizon-break without the aid of external cues, then continuously tracks the rocket through first-stage burnout, second-stage ignition, across boundaries between DAS sensors, and through the rocket's second-stage burnout at a distance of more than 800 miles.

Bloody hell! Shocked

just curious...can it stay locked onto non ir targets? For example most a-a missles burn for 5 seconds or so and then i would assume they are very hard to see even with 10x mag. do they build up enough heat? I guess what im sayin is that an f-35 probobly doesnt give a sh*t about a strategic missles. can it track tactical sams/ a-a missles?

Any object that is is a different temp than it's background can be tracked via an IIR device (ala EODAS). Btw, EODAS does not have an optical magnify function as the 10x in the video was digital mag (hence having a grainier picture).

Also, any object travailing at a high rate of speed through the air (even if coasting) will heat up due to air friction and become easier to detect via EODAS (or any other IR device like EOTS).

In short, yes the EODAS can track A2A missiles (as it was designed to), SAMS, TBMs, fighters, UAVs, tankers, etc wherever they appear to it's sensors.

This EODAS system is simply amazing!

I almost forgot, it can track people, vehicles, animals, etc on the ground also.

Now for a counter point Smile

and with all due respect to EO DAS's clear capabilities and potential growth:

But of course the EO DAS will continue to 'track' (i.e. record) the missile's signature throughout most of the flight -- it's a 360 degree, spherical coverage! By definition, no registering IR pixel source would therefore be outside (escape) the EO DAS's (a very capable sensor system, indeed raising the bar) recording aperture.

I say 'recording' of the burnout stages, because it (the tracking) can evidently be viewed in a post-edit, 10x magnification replay. That being said, it does not necessarily indicate there is a real-time mission computer being cued at farther distances. Is this not therefore mostly a 'post-edit' @ 10x magnification then, more so showing the post-shot after-analysis perspective and revealing the raw IR pixel signature resolution capability??

In being magnified then, does it reveal an image which could not be viewed by the pilot's useful day/night IR vision perspective in this 'recording' - being at a normal viewing of probably between what, 1x-2x??

Lastly, it would be interesting to know the initially sighted plume's range breaking above horizon, compared to the claimed final pixel sighted of the distant burn-out 800nm away. Based on that, I think there was some original misconception that EODAS could somehow generate launch site vectors and coordinates, etc, from a launch 800 miles away.

Just saying there's a slight discrepancy between such a capability and what EODAS (a very capable sensor with much potential) can actually be capable of in terms of generating precise ranges, or estimated launch site coordinates at extremely long distances. imho.

It claerly states real time magnification, not post edited. it's a pretty remarkable achievement but I should have known certain people would try and take a dump on this story by clainimg its all a fix.

geogen wrote:

I say 'recording' of the burnout stages, because it (the tracking) can evidently be viewed in a post-edit, 10x magnification replay. That being said, it does not necessarily indicate there is a real-time mission computer being cued at farther distances. Is this not therefore mostly a 'post-edit' @ 10x magnification then, more so showing the post-shot after-analysis perspective and revealing the raw IR pixel signature resolution capability??

In being magnified then, does it reveal an image which could not be viewed by the pilot's useful day/night IR vision perspective in this 'recording' - being at a normal viewing of probably between what, 1x-2x??

I think the point of the video wasn't that the DAS could simply see the object, but rather that it WAS able to determine what the object was and classify it. You can see the computer making the "decision" on what the objects were in realtime (ie. "Airborne Object Tentative" to "Airborne Object Declared")

Quote:

Lastly, it would be interesting to know the initially sighted plume's range breaking above horizon, compared to the claimed final pixel sighted of the distant burn-out 800nm away. Based on that, I think there was some original misconception that EODAS could somehow generate launch site vectors and coordinates, etc, from a launch 800 miles away.

I'm thinking that doesn't matter. If at least 2 F-35s get a fine azimuth track of this ballistic missile that's all they would need to share the data and triangulate a position of the missile and launch site. Perhaps the missile could be tracked by EOTS if only a single F-35 picks it up?

1. The F-35 pilot can use digital zoom to magnify any part of the live EODAS data while in flight. Unlike a FLIR, the EODAS' view does not narrow when zooming (due to being a digital zoom instead of an optical one) and it will not loose track to any part of it's coverage while zooming.

2. The EODAS analyzes the raw pixel data and does not need to zoom to make any kind of ID.

As far as DAS's resolution is concerned, it no doubt appears to have stunning qualities and abilities and will surely have significant mission growth potential too, as the Blocks evolve. As far as how tactically useful it would be in a real life ballistic missile launch detection role (via detection and real-time ranging, etc), I'd be curious how DAS's performance would compare to 9.2" aperture LW IRST pods on say, F-16s or F-15s.

It is doubtful in my opinion that a podded LW IRST would be anywhere near as good considering that pods tend to only look in the forward sector of the aircraft where as EODAS sees all around. They certainly seem to think the F-35 could be useful in the missile defence role:
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/F35_DAS ... s_999.html

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

Video: F-35 DAS ballistic missile track