MS 280 Reconnaissance System
General Characteristics:
Type:Reconnaissance pod
Platform:Fixed-wing aircraft
Sensors:Multispectral dual field-of-view EO/IR camera
Physical Characteristics:
Length:4,750 mm
Diameter:740 mm
Weight:950 kg
Flight Envelope
Altitude:Up to 15,200 meters
Speed:Up to Mach 1.6
Overview:
The MS 280 (multispectral 280 centimeter focal length) Reconnaissance System is a multispectral reconnaissance pod system designed by SDI Aerospace Systems which provides day and nighttime wide-area long-range surveillance and reconnaissance capability for fixed wing combat aircraft. The MS 280 pod contains a multispectral, dual field-of-view camera system mounted in a rotating enclosure providing side and downward looking imaging capability along with a reconnaissance management system (RMS), digital storage system (DSS), embedded INS/GPS system, and fore and aft Ku band data-link antennas providing 360° azimuth imagery downlink capability.
Design & Construction:The MS 280 pod has the rough form factor of a 1,300 liter external fuel tank and consists of a pod enclosure 475 centimeters long and 74 centimeters in diameter constructed from 7075 aluminum alloy divided into 5 equipment bays with datalink antennas on both ends and a servo-actuated rotating midsection which houses the camera sensor payload. The rotating midsection contains an 46 centimeter by 28 centimeter window and features a servomotor drive which can rotate the midsection a total of 180° at a rate of 90°/s. The pod enclosure houses the pod power distribution system (PPDS) which converts 3 phase 115 VAC 400 Hz power from the aircraft to 28VDC and 27OVDC power which is used to power the pod's various sensor and equipment systems. The pod enclosure also contains the pod environmental control system (ECS) which provides heating and both liquid and air cooling to the reconnaissance pod's various subsystems. The ECS employs an air intake scoop located at the aft of the pod on the starboard side for cooling air flow and includes an internal air cycle machine (ACM) cooling system with both air and Polyalphaolefin (PAO) liquid cooling loops for cooling the various pod electrical systems.
Sensors:MS-280 Camera: The primary sensor of the MS 280 Reconnaissance System is the SDI MS 280 multispectral EO/IR (electro-optical/infrared) camera. The MS 280 uses separate long-range and short-range telescopes with a common set of visible and infrared focal plane arrays (FPAs) covering six separate wavelength bands. The long-range ultra-narrow field of view (UNFOV) telescope features a focal length of 280 centimeters (visible) and 140 centimeters (infrared) while the short-range wide field of view (WFOV) telescope has a focal length of 41 centimeters (visible) and 35 centimeters (infrared). Each telescope has a beam-splitter which separates the incoming light into visible and infrared channels which then focuses the light using a set of relay optics onto the separate visible and infrared wavelength focal plane arrays. The visible channel contains a time delay integration (TDI) line-scan array with a silicon CCD with 64x 5,120 pixels operating in the 0.4 to 1.0 µm wavelength which is split into the red (0.64-0.67 um), blue (0.45-0.51 um), green (0.53-0.59 um), and near-infrared (0.85-0.88 um) bands (Bands 1-4). The infrared channel contains twin 512 x 484 pixel Indium antimonide (InSb) FPAs, a band 5 (SWIR) FPA operating in the 1.0 to 1.7 µm wavelength and a band 6 (MWIR) FPA operating in the 3.5 to 5.0 µm wavelength. Each band (1 through 6) is given its own color with imagery of the same scene from the six bands fuzed together to create composite multispectral color images providing significantly more detail than images from any single imagery band and detecting highly camouflaged or concealed targets not completely visible in any of the individual wavelength bands. Both telescopes and the focal plane array assemblies are mounted on a common rotating housing 138 centimeters long and 66.5 centimeters in diameter with a 2-axis stabilized gimbal which lets the housing rotate +/- 90° in the roll direction and and steer the optics +/- 20° fore and aft in the pitch direction. Mounted to the sensor gimbal is a 6-axis tactical-grade IMU (inertial measurement unit) containing a 3-axis ring laser gyro and a 3-axis servo accelerometer which is mechanically boresighted in line with the telescope optical path so that the telescope's exact pitch, roll, and yaw position and true heading relative to level can be measured and input to the image stabilization system. With the long-range telescope the MS-280 is capable of producing imagery with NIIRS level 5 (visible) and level 4 (infrared) resolution at slant ranges of up to 150 kilometres and can image more than 26,000 square kilometers of terrain per hour. In addition to long-range oblique photo reconnaissance the MS-280 can also be used for short range low-altitude overlight imagery and can can operate in five different imagery collection modes; wide area search, line-search, spot, multi-aspect/stereo, and target-of-opportunity.
Networking & Communication Systems:Reconnaissance management system (RMS): The MS 280 reconnaissance management system (RMS) is the command & control system of the MS 280 reconnaissance system and acts as the interface to the host aircraft with image compression, image data handling, and fault-detection and diagnostic functions. the RMS receives command signals from the aircraft cockpit and commands the camera system to one of the five imagery collection modes ( wide area search, line-search, spot, multi-aspect/stereo, and target-of-opportunity). Imagery data from the MS 280 is then transferred by the RMS to the digital storage system and/or to the pod's Ku band datalink system. The RMS is also responsible for receiving positional and aliment data from the pod's GPS aided inertial navigation system (INS) which is used for image motion compensation and to add location and time data overlay onto recorded camera imagery. The RMS hardware includes a mission processor with a sensor data compression suite (SDCS) which compress and resizes recorded camera images into JPEG format and a video processor which provides text overlay capability onto recorded camera imagery.
Digital storage system: The MS 280 pod's digital storage system comprises a interface unit and a data storage cartridge capable of storing up to 64 GB equaling approximately 60 minutes of recorded imagery. The digital storage system simultaneously record and transmit data at a rate of up to 720 Mbps and interfaces with a fiber-optic channel interface
Datalink: The MS-280 pod is equipped with twin Ku band (14.40-14.93 transmit and 15.15-15.35 GHz receive) SDI tactical high bandwidth datalink (THBD) compatible antennas which can stream recorded imagery at up to 274 Mbps at line-of-sight ranges up to 300 kilometres. The datalink system is comprised of four line-replaceable units (LRUs),an airborne modem assembly (AMA), a radio-frequency electronics (RFE) assembly, and twin assembly assemblies with a 24 centimeter 2-axis stabilized antenna located inside a radome fairing on each end of the pod.