This forum seeks to motivate in-depth discussion of emerging mission
requirements and report on system capabilities that leverage active E-O
technologies to meet current and future threats and / or provide a distinct
military advantage in land, sea, air, and space environments. Building stronger collaboration between
government S&T managers, laboratories, industry, and academic partners is a
key to this objective and will serve to accelerate the development of fielded
capabilities that meet future requirements.
Reports detailing the technical advances achieved, challenges remaining,
and the opportunities for future work should include material, component,
subsystem and system demonstrations, the calibration, processing, analysis, and
exploitation methods needed to drive future active E-O capabilities.
Electro-Optical & Infrared Countermeasures
The Electro-Optical Countermeasures Specialty Group provides a forum that focuses on countermeasures and counter-countermeasures for electro-optically based sensors, seekers, and systems operating from the UV through the far-far infrared. The group focuses on the signatures of US platforms and the suppression of those signatures in order to make the job of countering enemy sensors and seekers easier. Threats are characterized including various types of missile seekers and other guided weapons, in order to develop specific means of countering them. Warning systems that inform platform crew of impending threats or automatically trigger countermeasure systems are covered, including various types of missile and laser warning systems and systems used for situational awareness. Self-protection decoys and active countermeasures systems such as jammers are treated. Finally the group also focuses specifically on hardening of sensors against enemy laser threats to those sensors.