# Research report about the development of photoelectric imaging guidance technology and its applica

电子科技大学格拉斯哥学院 2017级董一飞，同组人员：王泓钧

1.Introduction

Missile weapons with precision guidance as the main feature are the “handcuffs” of modern high-tech warfare. Therefore, the development of precision guidance technology and its application in missile weapons has become one of the key points in the development of military technology in various countries, the United States and Europe and Russia. And even third world countries (such as India, Brazil, etc.) are competing to develop precision guidance technology. In recent years, with the rapid development of optoelectronic technology, optoelectronic guidance technology, especially imaging guidance technology, has become the core of missile composite guidance system. Many countries have listed optoelectronic image guidance technology and its application as the focus of military equipment technology development. This paper mainly analyzes the development of foreign infrared and radar photoelectric imaging guidance technology and its application in missile weapon guidance system, and studies the importance of using photoelectric imaging guidance to improve missile operational effectiveness.

2.Infrared Imaging GuidanceTechnology

Infrared imaging guidance is to use infrared detector to detect the infrared radiation of the target, to obtain infrared images for target capture and tracking and to direct the missile to the target. One of the key components of infrared imaging guidance is infrared detector. Compared with other imaging guidance techniques, infrared imaging guidance has the advantages of strong anti-jamming ability, high spatial resolution and sensitivity, long detection distance and high guidance accuracy.However, there is also a detector needs refrigeration, the target and background of the temperature difference dependence is strong, can only be passive detection, cannot obtain the target of distance information and other shortcomings.

As early as the 1970s, the United States,Germany and other countries began to develop the generation of infrared imaging guidance Technology (optical machine scanning type), since the 1980s, the main development of gaze infrared imaging guidance technology. In the past more than 30 years, infrared guidance technology has developed greatly. With the development of infrared detector technology, especially the engineering application of infrared focal plane detector, computer information processing and the development of ultra-large scale and ultra-high-speed integrated circuit technology, infrared homing guidance technology has also developed from point Source to imaging guidance, while imaging guidance has been developed from light machine scanning type to gaze type. Gaze infrared imaging guidance has the advantages of high resolution, high sensitivity and high information update rate, which is easy to deal with small target of high-speed maneuver, moving target or stealth target in complex feature background. It can provide a more ideal guidance method for small tactical missiles.

With the maturation of infrared imaging detection technology, it lays a foundation for the development of infrared imaging guidance technology and its application in missile. Countries are extremely concerned about this, especially the United States has continuously developed a missile weapon infrared guidance Development plan, Western European countries are also competing for development. The earlier use of infrared imaging guidance is the United States young Animals AGM-65D/F type, the use of optical machine scanning front-view infrared detector, mainly used to attack the ground (surface) activity target. Since then, Hughes has developed an infrared seeker for the focal plane gaze array. The Seeker adopts electronic scanning, which reduces the size of the detector and overcomes the difficulty of reading a single signal and improves the sensitivity and reliability accordingly. In the United States, “tank destroyer” and “whaling fork” and other missiles have adopted the electronic scanning focal plane gaze array infrared imaging seeker to varying degrees, so that the accuracy of the missile is greatly improved, and the cost is reduced. Subsequently, many new types of missiles also use infrared imaging guidance technology. such as the United States Slam-era, JDAM, Tomahawk Block4 and war zone high-altitude anti-aircraft missiles (THAAD), Britain’s “storm precursor”, France’s “Scalp”,Japan’s ASM-3 and other missiles. Infrared imaging guidance technology, as the third-generation infrared guidance technology, has become the mainstream of the development of precision guidance technology.

3. Radar Imaging Guidance technology

Radar imaging guidance mainly has microwave, millimeter wave radar and lidar guidance, they are the main guidance methods of precision guided weapons.

Microwave guidance is a microwave energy capture tracking target that receives the target by the microwave radar seeker on the projectile and guides the missile to hit the target guidance technology. In microwave imaging guidance, synthetic aperture radar imaging guidance technology has been paid more and more attention. Synthetic aperture Radar (SAR) is an active microwave imaging radar, which, after synthesizing the signal processing received by the antenna element at various points in space,can obtain the resolution of the large antenna array, and can even be imaged,so it can obtain high-resolution radar images under the meteorological conditions with poor visibility. Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging guidance system is mainly composed of synthetic aperture radar, image processing device,digital correlation and microcomputer. There is a digital datum map in the microcomputer, the image processing device processes the target and background image obtained by the imaging sensor, and matches the reference image stored in the computer, and then compares the results with the relevant quality threshold values. The above related process can be repeated, the position deviation of the missile when it flies over the area represented by a reference map is obtained, and the guidance instruction is formed to control the missile back to the correct trajectory. The digital scene matching area correlation guidance system used in missile terminal guidance belongs to this mode. Compared with other imaging guidance technology, synthetic aperture radar imaging technology has all-weather, all-day, can be long-distance imaging, can penetrate a certain camouflage, bunker imaging, high precision. However, its high cost, easy to be susceptible to electronic interference and cannot be near-range imaging.

Millimeter wave guidance is a guidance technique for the target reflection or radiation of millimeter wave information captured by the millimeter wave seeker on the projectile, which guides the missile to hit the target. The working mode of the seeker is active and passive. Active use of millimeter wave radar, passive use of non-transmitter passive radar, also known as radiation machine. Compared with infrared, millimeter wave is more suitable for complex battlefield environment and bad weather conditions,can detect farther distance, compared with microwave, millimeter wave detection, tracking target accuracy is higher, with the ability to distinguish multi-objective. Millimeter wave radar seeker can also effectively track and capture stealth targets and anti-radiation missiles. However, due to the limitation of device characteristics and the influence of millimeter wave transmission characteristics, the weakness of millimeter wave radar seeker is the close action distance, and the attenuation increases in the case of thick fog and heavy rain.

In order to ensure high precision, microwave and millimeter wave guided composite can be used to achieve “complementarity”. Microwave and millimeter wave radar guidance has been widely used in foreign countries, including: ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, anti-radiation, ABM air defense and other medium-guided or terminal guidance.

LiDAR is the product of the combination of laser technology and radar technology. It has high detection precision, strong anti-jamming ability and target recognition ability, large amount of information, can three-dimensional imaging. Therefore, LIDAR imaging guidance technology has become the focus of advanced countries for research and development of the key topics. As early as the 1980s, Lincoln Laboratories in the United States successfully developed the world’s first carbon dioxide laser imaging radar. Subsequently, the Sandia Laboratory developed Gallium arsenide (GaAs) diode laser imaging radar, which has fast imaging speed but short action distance and can only be used for short distance guidance. To date, the United States has developed a variety of CO2 laser imaging radar seeker and semiconductor laser imaging seeker, which can be used for the precise guidance of firing weapons and cruise missiles outside the zone, and the United Kingdom, France and so on have developed different radar imaging guides for precise guidance.

4. Application of photoelectric imaging guidance technology in missile guidance system

In order to improve the combat effectiveness of missiles, the improvement of accuracy is the first. One of the ways to improve the hit precision of missile is to adopt composite guidance, and photoelectric imaging guidance is the main mode of composite guidance,especially the terminal guidance, which is very important to the impact of missile hit accuracy. At present, the terminal guidance mode of missile is divided into two types, single-mode guidance and dual-mode/multi-mode guidance. There are many modes of single-mode guidance, which can choose different guidance methods according to the different combat tasks and battlefield conditions. For example, anti-ship missiles mostly use active radar guidance, most of the cruise missiles against land attack use scene matching, in attack power plant and other targets, the use of infrared guidance first class. With the increase of the level of confrontation encountered in the attack and the diversification of the means of confrontation, the single-mode guidance method has been difficult to complete the combat mission, so the United States and other military powers widely use dual-mode or multi-mode composite guidance technology.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, the development ofphotoelectric imaging guidance technology and its application in missile guidance can greatly improve the hit accuracy of the missile, and the operational effectiveness is obviously enhanced, so it has been paid attention to by all countries. With the development of optoelectronic technology and the growth of military demand, the further development of photoelectric imaging guidance technology will be promoted, and foreign countries pay special attention to the development of millimeter wave, long wave Infrared and multimode imaging guidance technology, improve target recognition and adaptive tracking and anti-jamming ability in complex battlefield environment. ; The development of multimode and intelligent seeker to meet the needs of missile multimode composite guidance. It can be expected that the development of infrared imaging guidance, microwave and millimeter prey to achieve image guidance, LIDAR imaging guidance and multi-mode seeker combination guidance will become the mainstream of precision guidance, and widely used in various types of missile weapons.

In the face of the complex world pattern and the international environment, as well as the security situation of the country, we need to speed up the development of photoelectric imaging guidance technology and apply it to the guidance system of missile weapons. Special attention should be paid to the development of new photoelectric detectors, the development of multimode and intelligent guides, the study of new multimode composite guidance technology, on the one hand to meet the needs of the development of new types of missiles, on the other hand, can be used to improve the old model, in order to improve the overall operational effectiveness of my missile weapon system.

In a word, photoelectric imaging guidance technology is one of the fast growing and widely used high and new technologies, which has played a significant role in promoting the development of missile guidance technology and guidance system. Based on tracking and studying the development of foreign countries in this field, we should draw lessons from its experience, accelerate the development of photoelectric imaging guidance technology in combination with China’s national conditions, and drive the development of missile composite guidance with imaging guidance technology. In addition, while studying photoelectric imaging guidance technology, we should pay attention to the study of its countermeasures in order to deal with the growing threat of precision guided weapons and ensure the security of the country.