Real-time IR scene generation of aircraft targets

The generation of high-fidelity imagery of infrared OR) radiation from aircraft targets is a computationally intensive task. These calculations must include details associated with the heating of the airframe, generation of the exhaust flowfield, and transport of the emitted, reflected, and absorbed radiation through the atmosphere. Additionally, spatial and temporal features such as complex airframe geometries, hot body parts, engine exhaust states, and atmospheric path must be consistently resolved regardless of aircraft and sensor orientation to eliminate nonphysical artifacts. This paper presents computational techniques to compute aircraft Infrared radiation imagery for high frame rate applications at the Kinetic Kill Vehicle Hardware-in-the-loop Simulator (KHILS) facility located at Eglin AFB. Details concerning the underlying phenomenologies are also presented to provide an understanding of the computational rationale. Finally, several example calculations are presented to illustrate the level of fidelity that can be achieved using these methods.