Employment
ISR Systems and Technology – Division 10
The Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Systems and Technology Division leads MIT Lincoln Laboratory research in ISR systems and technology, featuring development, implementation, and field evaluation of advanced sensors for undersea, surface, air, and space mission environments. Disciplines of importance include sensor technology and concept development, systems analysis, and signal and image processing. The required evaluation functions include design of signal processor hardware and software, prototyping and field testing of large-scale ISR systems, and collection and analysis of field test data.
| Groups |
Group 101—ISR Systems and Architectures
The ISR Systems and Architectures Group emphasizes analysis and evaluation of ISR systems and architectures. The goals of the group are to provide systems analysis support to MIT Lincoln Laboratory's ISR enterprises, focused in the division, and to directly support sponsor studies. Relevant activities feature trade studies comparing alternative ISR architectures and systems, including formulation of concepts of operations and assessment of performance for integrated multi-intelligence sensor and exploitation systems. Analytic methods as well as software modeling and simulation are applied to derive quantitative comparisons and to evaluate the impact of environmental factors such as target and clutter phenomenology. Field exercises and data collection experiments augment the analysis efforts as appropriate, including formulation and execution of red–blue exercises to test and validate predicted system capabilities.
Group 102—Embedded Digital Systems
The Embedded Digital Systems Group delivers real-time embedded processing capabilities for a broad spectrum of military applications. To this end, the group applies hardware architecture design, embedded software engineering, and signal processing analysis to a wide spectrum of military sensors and weapons systems, including space-borne and airborne radars, submarine and ship-borne systems, missiles, and torpedoes. The group's charter provides for development of expertise in both high-performance system-level prototyping and the enabling hardware and software technology. In pursuing these objectives, the group produces some of the highest-performance digital signal processor hardware technology in the world. At the same time, it is a leader in revolutionary software engineering initiatives that exploit high-level open system architecture and middleware approaches to achieve full cross-platform portability, improved system performance, and enhanced programmer productivity. Applying a multidisciplinary approach, the group is able to address ever more challenging requirements, matching signal processing applications to enabling technologies that range from very-large-scale integration (VLSI), application-specific integrated circuits and field-programmable gate arrays to large-scale parallel signal processors.
Group 103—Advanced Sensor Techniques
The Advanced Sensor Techniques Group develops and demonstrates new algorithms for processing signals, images, and data for a broad range of sensor system applications, including space-borne and airborne radar, passive sonar, advanced wireless communications, signals intelligence, and robust navigation. The group's core competencies are developing algorithms and sensor concepts for signal detection, communication, localization, and classification in difficult environments. The group has expertise in adaptive sensor array processing, signal detection and estimation, pattern recognition, multichannel communications, underwater acoustics, and systems analysis. The staff members have advanced degrees in electrical engineering, physics, and applied mathematics. The group conducts a significant amount of field testing and data collection to prove new concepts and collaborates with other groups within the division and throughout the Laboratory in real-time prototype implementation, experiment execution, and systems analysis.
Group 104—Intelligence and Decision Technologies
The Intelligence and Decision Technologies Group develops advanced technologies for processing and integrating data from a variety of sensors, such as radar, electro-optic and video systems, and others as available. The goal of this processing is to extract critical information for decision makers about targets and areas of interest on the surface of the earth. A key aspect of this work is development of systems architectures and algorithms for timely and efficient distribution of this information and knowledge to analysts and decision makers. Required technologies include multisensor integration, data fusion, and algorithms for knowledge management and decision support to transform high-volume sensor data streams into tactically useful information. Sponsored programs in the group include analysis of airborne and space-based ground surveillance radars for broad-area imaging and moving-target detection, network-centric sensor architectures, sensor data exploitation, sensor grid experimentation, and software development to implement architectures and techniques for integrated sensing and decision support. Areas of technical staff expertise in the group include systems analysis, modeling and simulation, feature extraction and pattern analysis using multisensor data, information-theoretic analysis of decision processes, and design, execution, and analysis of laboratory and field experiments.
Group 105—Advanced RF Sensing and Exploitation
The Advanced RF Sensing and Exploitation Group develops technology solutions for defense-related ISR missions, emphasizing RF sensing, signal processing, target feature exploitation, and prototype system development. Challenging problems are analyzed from a systems perspective. Innovative solutions exploiting small size, weight, and power consumption form the basis for several key program development thrusts in the group. For example, custom RF front-end hardware such as ultrawideband multifunction antenna arrays and VLSI-based digital receivers are developed for military ground vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles. The group synergistically combines hardware with digital signal processing to enable new radar and intelligence data collection capabilities, and has moved beyond classical radar signal detection and imaging to develop concepts exploiting target features and data fusion from multiple sensor types, thereby enhancing detection and tracking in challenging (e.g., dense urban) environments. Programs in the group typically entail system development in existing RF test chambers and in unique rapid prototyping facilities, culminating in field test and evaluation. Principal staff expertise in the group includes system engineering, digital signal processing, electromagnetic analysis and antenna design, RF integrated circuits and receiver design, experimental physics, and hardware development and integration.
Group 106—Active Optical Systems
The Active Optical Systems Group's mission is to establish a laser radar center of excellence through development of advanced laser radar technology. One of the major research thrusts in this pursuit is implementation and application of 3D laser radars employing novel receiver technology featuring arrays of detectors that are individually sensitive to single photons. The group is currently addressing the development and operation of airborne and ground-based 3D laser radars, along with data collection, data exploitation, and simulation and modeling efforts for various applications. The group is also pursuing significant efforts in the development of coherent laser radar, including adaptation of advanced radar techniques to the optical environment, pushing the bandwidth of coherent systems into the terahertz regime, and using photon-counting detector arrays in coherent receivers. The goals of these efforts range from laboratory demonstrations to development of field-deployable systems. The group is also developing technologies to enable remote sensing systems in the near-optical terahertz regime. The objectives of this work include both receiver and source development for integrated remote sensing systems.
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