Employment
Air and Missile Defense Technology — Division 3
The Air and Missile Defense Technology Division's role is to work with government, industry, and laboratories to develop an integrated missile defense system. The division's main focus is investigating system concepts, developing technology, building prototypes, and conducting measurements to support the development of radar and optical sensors, interceptors, and networks for air and missile defense systems. A strong emphasis is placed on partnerships and the transfer of technology to industry.
Group 31—Systems and Architectures
The Systems and Architectures Group examines near- and long-term technology opportunities for the purpose of charting the future development of U.S. ballistic missile defense. As the country proceeds with the deployment of a national missile defense system, MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the group are working on the next generation of systems. The group investigates advanced radar concepts, new infrared sensors, missile designs, space-based platforms, and future distributed command-and-control software to help identify opportunities to develop, test, and deploy these technologies. Staff members in the group have a wide variety of backgrounds, including physics, electrical engineering, math, and astrodynamics.
Group 32—Advanced Concepts and Technology
The Advanced Concepts and Technology Group supports the Missile Defense Agency in the development and evaluation of advanced algorithms and architectures for ballistic missile defense. Algorithms and architectures of interest are target detection in noise and clutter, multitarget and multisensor tracking, target identification and handover, multisensor fusion, and sensor/weapon resource management. The group analyzes radar and optical sensor data to identify phenomenologies that can be exploited to improve target identification and subsequent engagement. On the basis of findings, algorithms and architectures that utilize advanced cognitive science techniques to demonstrate these exploitation concepts are developed and evaluated over broad parameter spaces.
Group 33—Ranges and Test Beds
The Ranges and Test Beds Group supports the Department of Defense by designing and developing modern sensor systems and components to enable a ballistic missile defense system. The group has a long-term association with the Reagan Test Site (RTS), located on the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific. The group has played a key role in developing the sophisticated instrumentation suite at RTS. The group's sensor systems expertise is being extended to support ranges involved in ballistic missile defense system testing as well as tracking satellites throughout both the Atlantic and Pacific regions. The group designs test beds with sensor sidecars with network-centric architectures that support discrimination algorithm testing and sensor fusion experiments. The group is also investigating the system architecture and signal processing concepts associated with a radical radar design approach for the next generation of discrimination radar sensors and for new technology to improve the performance of over-the-horizon radars.
Group 34—Intelligence, Test, and Evaluation
The Intelligence, Test, and Evaluation Group supports the testing and development of the ballistic missile defense system being pursued by the Missile Defense Agency. In particular, the group plans and conducts field experiments and collects data to understand problems and formulate solutions that impact the nation's capability to defend against ballistic missiles. The group also focuses on characterizing threat missile systems on the basis of the analysis of collected radar and optical data.
Group 35—Air and Missile Defense Assessments
The Air and Missile Defense Assessments Group supports air and missile defense development through system testing and integrated system performance assessment. The group is located in Huntsville, Alabama, near the center of mass for the Missile Defense Agency and Army air defense activity. The focus of the group's efforts are on (1) developing data-driven, technical effectiveness assessments and characterizing deployed or about-to-be deployed capability; (2) supporting system-level test design, execution, and analysis; (3) identifying risks, evaluating anomalies, and developing lessons learned for ballistic missile defense sensors; and (4) identifying mitigations and technology-insertion opportunities for air and missile defense components and systems. The group collaborates with groups located in Lexington, Massachusetts, and extensive analysis of simulations and ground and flight test data is performed to support these activities.
Group 36—Missile Defense Elements
The Missile Defense Elements Group supports the Missile Defense Agency in the development, deployment, testing, and enhancement of the ballistic missile defense system. This system is currently being developed to defend the United States, deployed forces, and allies from ballistic missile attacks. The group performs detailed system and component engineering, flight and ground test analysis, and advanced capability development in collaboration with the contractors and government program offices that are building the missile defense elements and components. Several elements are being developed, tested, and deployed in the near future, including the ground-based missile defense element (to protect the United States from intercontinental ballistic missiles) and a ship-based Aegis ballistic missile defense element (to protect deployed forces and allies against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles).
Group 38—Seeker and Interceptor Technology
The Seeker and Interceptor Technology Group supports the development of advanced technologies and systems for application to interceptor missiles to be used in future ballistic missile defense systems. These programs support the Missile Defense Agency as well as the military services in developing elements of the planned ballistic missile defense system. The technology and system development efforts also support the evolution of advanced ballistic missile defense concepts and capabilities as well as new ground, airborne, and space-based sensors for data collection. The emphasis of the group's work is on advanced sensors and algorithms, missile guidance, mission simulations, laboratory and field/flight tests, and data reduction and analysis.
Group 39—Air Defense Techniques
The Air Defense Techniques Group develops radar, communications, and systems technologies for use in future air defense systems. Of particular interest is the development of highly digitized phased-array radars and advanced signal processing techniques to enable the next generation of shipboard and airborne surveillance sensors. Major activities within the group include system concept development, modeling and simulation, signal processing algorithm design, prototype system design and development, and experimental field testing and data analysis.
Reagan Test Site (Kwajalein)
The Reagan Test Site Group serves as the scientific advisor to the Reagan Test Site at the U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll installation located about 2500 miles WSW of Hawaii. Twenty staff members, accompanied by their families, work at this site, generally serving a three-year tour of duty. The site's radars and optical and telemetry sensors support missile testing and satellite tracking. The test site provides facilities for sensor technology development and for the development of ballistic missile defense techniques. MIT Lincoln Laboratory also supports upgrades to the command-and-control infrastructure of the Range by using a network-centric architecture enabling operations from distributed geographic locations.
top of page