Airborne reactive threat simulator

Abstract

A novel airborne reactive threat simulator is presented. The simulator comprises an aircraft flight and carrier qualified podded external store and a cockpit mounted system control box. The pod is capable of supersonic flight envelopes and houses a sophisticated, state-of-the-art, microprocessor controlled, programmable tracking radar system and associated data collection peripherals. The control box provides the operator/machine interface during system operation. The system operates from a library of preprogrammed scenarios, which are selected by the pilot of the aircraft during routine training/testing exercises. A threat simulation scenario is selected by the pilot as the pilot flies a predetermined profile mission against a target ship. The software routine is executed by the microprocessing system which in turn controls all system hardware components and peripherals. The executed routine orchestrates the hardware operation to produce the desired radio frequency (RF) signature emulation, which is intended to be recognized by the ship's electronic signal measurement (ESM) equipment as the threat of interest. The invention then progresses through the preprogrammed threat seeker operations of searching for, acquiring, and homing on the target vessel. The microprocessing system controls the system hardware to emulate the modes of operation, range and angle tracking loops of the threat seeker radar and provide a video display for the pilot.