Principal Accomplishments

  • pixel-processing imagerThe Lincoln Laboratory-developed pixel processing imager will enable significantly improved infrared sensor performance across a wide range of ballistic missle defense, air defense, and persistent surveillance applications.

    A pixel processing imager (PPI) developed at Lincoln Laboratory will enable greatly improved infrared sensor performance across a wide range of ballistic missile defense, air defense, and persistent surveillance applications. The PPI device is formed by mating a detector array to a Lincoln Laboratory–developed digital readout integrated circuit. The PPI has significantly improved dynamic range, area coverage rate, and on-chip image processing power, compared to analog or conventional digital readout technologies. PPI devices will allow the development of large, high-resolution, high-frame-rate imagers and will also allow modestly sized imagers to scan quickly over wide fields of regard.
  • The development of a mobile X-band instrumentation radar (XTR-1) proceeded into the system integration and checkout phase at the Lincoln Space Surveillance Complex in Westford, Massachusetts. The XTR-1 will become the radar component of the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA's) mobile range concept. The radar is based on the modern Radar Open Systems Architecture originally developed for the suite of instrumentation radars at the Reagan Test Site. The XTR‑1 will begin participating in Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) flight testing in 2009.
  • Lincoln Laboratory in cooperation with the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation completed the first demonstration of critical components of a next-generation over-the-horizon (OTH) surveillance radar using modifications to the Australian operational Jindalee OTH Radar Network. New radar waveforms and adaptive processing techniques were developed and utilized to significantly reduce the effects of multiple propagation paths on target detection. The technology is being integrated by the Laboratory into a radar test bed for the next-generation U.S. OTH radar.
  • The Reagan Test Site (RTS) Distributed Operations project successfully completed several engineering and test milestones, including a Critical Design Review. The development and integration of this modern net-centric control, communication, and sensing architecture for the RTS allow missile test and space operations occurring at RTS to be conducted from the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Alabama.
  • The Laboratory continues to have a significant role in the development of a new radar system for the Navy's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne early-warning system. Lincoln Laboratory collected and analyzed data from the E-2D test bed flight-test program and provided an independent assessment of the performance of the new radar system. An additional flight-test campaign was conducted using Lincoln Laboratory's airborne test bed to examine the performance of advanced waveforms and algorithms for the E-2D upgrade.

 

 

 

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