DOW-UAP-D148

AAWSAP DIRD, Detection and High-Resolution Tracking of Vehicles at Hypersonic Velocities, November 2010

Preview description (machine-generated): Line graph compares infrared energy spectra detectable from objects moving at Mach 3 and Mach 3.5, showing peaks in different wavelengths.

Official description

This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys how hypersonic vehicles may be detected and tracked by exploiting the physical effects they create in flight, especially shock waves, ionized gas, hot surfaces, and turbulent atmospheric wakes. The report reviews a broad set of detection methods, including radar, infrared sensing, optical imaging, LIDAR, passive radio reflection, infrasound, and seismic techniques, and argues that the most effective systems will likely combine multiple sensor types, because each captures different features of a high-speed vehicle’s passage through the atmosphere. It presents radar and infrared sensing as the strongest existing tools for operational detection, while giving particular attention to wake-based methods such as LIDAR and passive radio techniques for improving tracking, identification, and discrimination of future hypersonic aircraft. The paper identifies hypersonic vehicles as an evolving surveillance problem in which future progress will depend on better multi-sensor integration, improved wake characterization, and novel signature-exploitation techniques.

Reproduced verbatim from the releasing agency.

AI summary

This document outlines techniques for detecting and tracking hypersonic vehicles, highlighting the physical effects these vehicles create during flight, such as shock waves and turbulent wakes. It consolidates existing methods of detection, including radar and infrared, and emphasizes the need for improved multi-sensor integration for effective monitoring. The insights are significant for advancing surveillance capabilities in response to the evolving nature of high-speed aerospace threats.