Dr. Donald C. Washburn Profile

Dr. Donald C. Washburn

at Air Force Research Lab

SPIE Involvement:

Author

Publications (9)

Proceedings Article | 23 August 2005 Paper

Tracking in clutter and effects of thermal blooming on HEL beams

Mikhail Belen'kii, Kevin Hughes, Oleg Michailovich, Vincent Rye, Allen Tannenbaum, Don Washburn

Proceedings Volume 5895, 58950F (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.613280

KEYWORDS: Thermal effects, Thermal blooming, Optical flow, Motion estimation, Cameras, Detection and tracking algorithms, Directed energy weapons, Optical tracking, Motion models, Atmospheric propagation

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Proceedings Article | 8 September 2004 Paper

The magic of relay mirrors

Edward Duff, Donald Washburn

Proceedings Volume 5413, (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.567096

KEYWORDS: Relays, Mirrors, Space mirrors, Laser sources, Adaptive optics, Weapons, Defense and security, Target designation, Fiber optic illuminators, Analytical research

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Proceedings Article | 4 February 2002 Paper

Differential-tilt technique for saturation-resistant profiling of atmospheric turbulence

Matthew Whiteley, Donald Washburn, Lawrence Wright

Proceedings Volume 4494, (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.454795

KEYWORDS: Turbulence, Profiling, Atmospheric propagation, Error analysis, Statistical analysis, Atmospheric turbulence, Adaptive optics, Radar, Data modeling, Motion measurement

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Proceedings Article | 16 August 2001 Paper

Optical path tracking in high-scintillation scenarios

Constantino Rago, Melvyn Huff, Ravi Ravichandran, Raman Mehra, Tim Zajic, Norman Lehtomaki, Ronald Mahler, Donald Washburn

Proceedings Volume 4380, (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.436954

KEYWORDS: Missiles, Neural networks, Filtering (signal processing), Atmospheric optics, Optical tracking, Error analysis, Fiber optic illuminators, Motion models, Nose, Associative arrays

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The problem described in this paper deals with tracking the optical path perturbations introduced by the atmosphere when illuminating a target (missile) with laser light. Due to atmospheric irregularities, the optical path from an observer to an in-flight missile deviates from a straight line, and also changes in time. If the goal of the system is to point a laser beam at a specific point (or area) of the missile body for a given period of time, these optical path variations should be tracked and compensated when pointing the laser beam. The laser beam should be pointed, not to the true but to the apparent location of the desired spot. In the actual system, the missile is illuminated with several lasers (forming a broad beam), and an image of the missile (distorted through the atmosphere) is obtained from the backscattered light. This image contains all the information available about the optical path. The purpose of the work presented here is to estimate the apparent location of five different spots of the missile (distributed evenly along the longitudinal axis, from the nose up to mid-body) from the backscattered images and a- priori information that includes the size and speed of the missile. The dta available is high-fidelity simulated data, and the apparent locations of the desired spots (over time) are known. Two approaches are considered here. The first approach is based on breaking the problem into two parts: a measurement part and an estimation part. For the measurement part, a Neural Network is used to infer a mapping from the image to the apparent location of the points of interest (known for the simulated data). Those measured locations are then used by a Kalman filter to estimate the apparent locations. The Kalman filter exploits the fact that the optical paths (from different spots along the longitudinal axis) are correlated in time. This correlation is caused by the missile's displacement through the atmosphere. The second approach is to compute the centroids of the images and use the resulting points as estimates of the apparent location of a point on the missile. For the first approach, simulation results show a noticeable decrease in the rms error of the apparent location estimates when compared to the average location (mean value). The second approach, while simple, was found to perform quite well.

Proceedings Article | 17 November 2000 Paper

Does the detailed turbulence profile matter?

Donald Washburn, Robert Butts

Proceedings Volume 4125, (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.409289

KEYWORDS: Turbulence, Atmospheric propagation, Solids, Device simulation, Optical simulations, Transmitters, Atmospheric turbulence, Laser beam propagation, Wave propagation, Atmospheric modeling

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Proceedings Article | 3 August 1999 Paper

State equations for nonrational spectra

Donald Washburn

Proceedings Volume 3706, (1999) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.356972

KEYWORDS: Optical filters, Filtering (signal processing), Electronic filtering, Optimal filtering, Signal processing, Chemical elements, Tin, Signal generators, Systems modeling, Atmospheric propagation

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Proceedings Article | 8 September 1998 Paper

Segmentation-independent estimates of turbulence parameters

George Papanicolaou, Knut Solna, Donald Washburn

Proceedings Volume 3381, (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.323947

KEYWORDS: Data modeling, Wavelets, Turbulence, Electronic filtering, Stochastic processes, Statistical modeling, Solids, Error analysis, Process modeling, Spatial frequencies

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Proceedings Article | 8 September 1998 Paper

Recovery of Kolmogorov statistics in the troposphere

Lou Rossi, Gerald Kaiser, Donald Washburn

Proceedings Volume 3381, (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.323946

KEYWORDS: Wavelets, Image segmentation, Turbulence, Troposphere, Atmospheric optics, Atmospheric propagation, Information operations, Temperature metrology, Analytical research, Atmospheric turbulence

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Proceedings Article | 6 August 1997 Paper

ABLE ACE: a high-altitude propagation program

Donald Washburn

Proceedings Volume 3065, (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.281021

KEYWORDS: Sensors, Atmospheric propagation, Receivers, Wave propagation, Cameras, Transmitters, Atmospheric optics, Phase measurement, Data modeling, Turbulence

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Showing 5 of 9 publications

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