Moving Target Recognition Can Change Battle Results
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In many occasions, the preliminary identification of an enemy vehicle on the move could change the results of a battle. The U.S. Defense Department’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has launched its Moving Target Recognition (MTR) program that will use algorithms to identify moving military ground vehicles.
The move is part of the agency’s “Mosaic Warfare” vision, in which each weapon system is one “tile” in a large force package that overwhelms the adversary. One way Mosaic Warfare might work in a ground battle would be to send an unmanned aerial vehicle or ground robot ahead of the main ground battle force. It might spot an enemy tank. The unmanned system passes the coordinates back, which are then relayed to a non-line-of-sight strike system in the rear, which in turn launches its munitions and takes out the target, according to defence-blog.com.
For the MTR program, DARPA is interested in algorithms and collection techniques that allow synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, sensors to “detect, geolocate, and image moving ground targets,” the announcement read.
If the goals of the project are met, the MTR program will then work to develop automatic target recognition algorithms for the moving target images.
Test for moving target recognition will include airborne data collection experiments to test and evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms. Under the contract, performers will be required to provide the airborne radar sensors and flight services, while the government team will design experiments with moving ground vehicles, according to c4isrnet.com.
The program will combine accumulated target classification information, obtained from individual warfighting platforms to yield improved classification and improved association.
The program has two phases. Phase one will focus on SAR moving target detection, geolocation and imaging. It has a performance period of two years and a six-month option. Phase two will center on automatic target recognition.
