Testing tomorrow's fire control systems today

Military Electro-Optic fire control systems have evolved greatly over the years and continue to do so. The pace of evolution has sped up, due to the lower cost of purchasing upgraded sensor systems vs. the higher cost of buying all new tanks, ships, or aircraft. The evolution of fire control systems themselves drive a required evolution to their optical test systems, which must have a 4X to 10X greater precision. The newest fire control systems, many still in the drawing stages, have 2(nd) and 3(rd) generation FLIRs/DLIRs, coaxial FLIR/Laser systems, as well as much improved laser rangefinder/designator systems. Additionally, many of the newer systems are going to EYESAFE laser wavelengths which carry another set of requirements. This paper will discuss the requirements for testing current and future systems. We shall show the paradigm shift required for such testing and a production E-O test system which is already testing some of tomorrow's fire control systems today.