Imaging infrared seeker design and tests for FOK guided missile

The design, development and performance evaluation of an imaging infrared seeker system of the FOK missile will be presented in this paper. FOK is a guided missile iteratively developed since 2017 by the Students’ Space Association at Warsaw University of Technology, designed as a testbed for the development of control algorithms. Throughout the years of development the design evolved, and currently assumes the incorporation of an electro-optical seeker, enabling the missile to actively search and track ground-based targets. An infrared detection module was chosen as the core sensing component of the system. The module consists of an uncooled 640x512 microbolometer detector array integrated with dedicated optics, providing a high-resolution image in the 8–12μm spectral range. Since the seeker will be mounted at the front of the missile, an IR-transparent nose cone dome was required as part of the optical system. Two dome variants were designed, made out of silicon and germanium, respectively. Optical parameters of the imaging system, composed of the dome — objective — microbolometer array were calculated and confirmed using ray-tracing software. The designed domes were optimized in order to minimize image quality degradation. Key parameters considered during the calculations included: optical aberrations, modulation transfer function — MTF and field of view — FOV. Software-in-the-loop tests with the use of in-house developed simulation software will be performed together with hardware-in-the-loop tests based on capturing real images obtained by the tested system installed under a UAV. The tests’ goal was to check the performance of the developed guidance algorithms in an operational-like environment.