TALON_SYSTEM
Hypersonic missile detection and tracking, onboard the satellite. TALON finds dim, unresolved targets that conventional processing would miss and holds that track in real time on low-SWaP flight hardware.
Left: Simulated wide-field-of-view, low-Earth-orbit sensor frame generated with ASSET; the green dots are true locations of simulated hypersonic missile signatures. Right: Zoomed-in view of one of the missile tracks; the green dot is the true location of the simulated missile, the red dot is the track location, the blue ellipse is the track uncertainty, and the black “X” is the detection of the missile from that frame.
Detect & Track Pipeline
Temporal Anomaly Detection
Examines how the scene evolves across multiple frames to separate a moving target’s signature from the naturally changing background, revealing targets that wide-field-of-view proliferated-LEO sensors dilute within large pixels and that are invisible in any single image.
Unscented Kalman Filter Tracking
Pairs a proven kinematic-tracking framework with the detection front end to maintain custody of the missile as it accelerates and maneuvers at Mach 5 and beyond.
Onboard Real-Time Processing
Implemented for GPU-accelerated, low-SWaP edge computing with algorithms optimized from Python to C++ to run the full detect-and-track chain at a high update rate onboard the satellite.
Proven Against Realistic Scenarios
Validated with AFIT ASSET
Built on JANUS’ overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) expertise dating back to 2016 as one of the first tenants of the OPIR TAP Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, TALON is validated using high-fidelity synthetic data generated with the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Sensor and Scene Emulation Tool (ASSET), incorporating satellite, target, and cloud motion across specified sensor geometries and a broad range of target and environmental conditions.
- Physics-Based Synthetic Frame Sequences
- Flight-Representative Edge Hardware
System_Parameters
Partnership_Note
Designed as a building block: the onboard detection-and-tracking “brain” that complements the satellites and sensors built by others, giving constellation and sensor developers a proven, flight-minded missile-tracking capability they do not have to build from scratch.