Tutorial Sessions

IEEE Space, Aerospace and Defence Conference, SPACE 2025

EO/IR Distributed Sensor

Abstract:

The Distributed Sensor Technology and Education Initiative (DSTEI) tutorial is motivated for small sensors on Drones. This Lecture is divided into five parts.

DSTEI Project Objectives: A distributed grouping of Drones is considered for AESS Student Branch Chapters as a project design.
EO/IR Sensor System: The design of an electro-optic/infrared (EO/IR) sensor on small Drones is detailed. A concept of these devices on a Drone are presented for area coverage for crops and fire surveillance.
Planck’s Law The requirements for sensing by the direct solar illumination and indirect irradiance of the target is considered. The day/night sensing is presented based on the sensor design.
Focal Plane Array Design: A focal plane array (FPA) is defined for the lens, imaging sensor and distance resolution. The impact of FPA characteristics for EO and IR designs are provided in several flight geometries.
Sensor/System Interfaces: The last section of the lecture will illustrate materials design, area coverage rate of the data collection and interface to the navigation and datalink during a project collection.

Because of the issuance of two patents (one an already awarded US patent # No. 11,815,862, and another India patent under review), the contents of this tutorial presentation are IP protected and can be used only with a technology licensing agreement with the firm Robust Engineering Systems, LLC or permission from it.

Bio-sketch for Speaker:

Dr. Mark E. Davis has over 50 years’ experience in Radar technology and systems development. He has held senior management positions in the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Air Force Research Laboratory, and General Electric Aerospace. At DARPA, he was the program manager on both the foliage penetration (FOPEN) radar advanced development program and the GeoSAR foliage penetration mapping radar. Dr Davis has written a new text on Ultra-Wide Band Surveillance Radar, published by IET in January 2021. He has been the DSTEI Project leader for the AESS system design of distributed EO/IR sensors.

His education includes a PhD in Physics from The Ohio State University, and Bachelor and Master’s Degrees in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University. He is a Life Fellow of both the IEEE and Military Sensing Symposia, and Past-President of IEEE Aerospace Electronics Systems Society (AESS). He is the 2011 recipient of the AESS Warren D White Award for Excellence in Radar Engineering, and the 2018 IEEE Dennis J. Pickard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications.