AMRDEC's HWIL synthetic environment development efforts for ladar sensors

Hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) testing has been an integral part of the modeling and simulation efforts at the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Engineering, and Development Center (AMRDEC). AMRDEC's history includes the development and implementation of several unique technologies for producing synthetic environments in the visible, infrared, MMW and RF regions. With the emerging sensor/electronics technology, LADAR sensors are becoming more viable option as an integral part of weapon systems, and AMRDEC has been expending efforts to develop the capabilities for testing LADAR sensors in a HWIL environment. There are several areas of challenges in LADAR HWIL testing, since the simulation requirements for the electronics and computation are stressing combinations of the passive image and active sensor HWIL testing. There have been several key areas where advancements have been made to address the challenges in developing a synthetic environment for the LADAR sensor testing. In this paper, we will present the latest results from the LADAR projector development and test efforts at AMRDEC's Advanced Simulation Center (ASC).