Mobile, embedded computer system for infrared data collection

The loss of aircraft to surface-to-air missiles in recent conflicts has focused renewed attention on building new infrared (IR) based missile warning systems. To ensure that these new systems are capable of discriminating missiles from background noise requires a thorough characterization of both the background noise and the missile signature data in the infrared spectrum. The best method for collecting these data is through the use of airborne IR imaging systems and their corresponding data collection units. Unfortunately, the physical size, power consumption, weight and cooling requirements of current data collection units prevent them from being used in most airborne applications. One goal of the Avionics Laboratory is to collect IR data for background characterization studies. Decreasing research budgets dictate that these data be collected economically. Therefore, Avionics Laboratory in-house personnel designed, built and fielded a low-cost IR data collection system mounted in a light aircraft. The design of the data collection system and some examples of imagery collected by the system are presented