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LITENING II - AN/AAQ 28 (V) pod version in F/A-18C Hornet?


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What version do we exactly have?

 

Original LITENING II is from 1999, then LITENING II ER from 2001, LITENING II AT from 2003.

 

Various sources says that base II model share either a 256k FLIR. And ER upgraded it to 512k. But some says it was LITENING III that brought 640x480 FLIR with digital stabilization and zooming, thats one variant is LITENING EF.

 

In "Department of Defense Appropriations: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, Volume 4, Parts 36-2005" it is said that AT brought 512k FLIR and capability target J-series weapons, so we must have the AT from 2003 that we have in Hornet.

 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO LIEUTENANT GENERAL DANIEL JAMES , III QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR CONRAD BURNS LITENING II PODS

 

Question . What are your requirements for the Litening II Pods for the Air Na tional Guard ?

 

Answer . The LITENING family of targeting pods has evolved from the original LITENING II to ER ( Extended Range ) and now to AT ( Advanced Technology ) . The LITENING AT pod is equipped with a 512k FLIR , Laser Spot Track ( LST ) , and the capability to target J - Series Weapons . The Northrop Grumman LITENING AT tar geting pod ( TGP ) is comparable to Lockheed Martin ' s Sniper XR . The total targeting pod requirement for the Air National Guard is 266 pods that includes 203 for Block 25 / 30 / 32 / 42 F - 16s and 54 for the A - 10 . This breaks down to 8 TGPs per squadron plus spares . The ANG has 87 LITENING TGPs in the inventory , with 25 LITENING ATs on order , 12 Sniper XRs on order , and 70 Sniper XRs to be received from the active duty Air Force . The remaining requirement is 63 TGPs at a unit cost of $ 1 . 3 million per pod for a total price of $ 81 . 9 million .

 

F - 16 FLEET

 

Question . Is the Air Force adequately funded to provide these pods to the F - 16 ?

 

Answer . No . The United States Air Force currently has 470 LANTIRN Targeting Pods ( TGP ) in its inventory , which has a single mode Forward Looking Infra - Red ( FLIR ) and does not have a TV mode , Laser Spot Search and Track ( LSS / LST ) , Laser Marker ( LM ) , or the ability to generate J - series weapons.

The total documented requirement for the Combat Air Forces ( CAF ) is 679 3rd Generation TGPs . The United States Air Force has budgeted for 200 Sniper XR targeting pods , with 56 on contract . The United States Air Force , Air National Guard , and AFRC have a total of 134 LITENING pods in their inventories . This leaves the CAF 345 TGPs short of our documented requirements . The United States Air Force and Air National Guard combined forces in February 2000 to develop and procure the Advanced Targeting Pod ( ATP ) . Lockheed Martin ' s Sniper XR pod won an open competition for the ATP contract , and the Air National Guard is supposed to receive 70 of the first 176 Snipers that are procured . Sniper is over a year and a half late , and the Air National Guard is still waiting to receive the first TGP from the United States Air Force . LITENING has helped satisfy ANG requirements in the interim .

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Our version of the pod is based on Spanish Air Force documentation, so my guess would be the III. The LITENING pod on the A-10C and F-16 is specifically the AT, as-stated in their manuals.

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Our version of the pod is based on Spanish Air Force documentation, so my guess would be the III. The LITENING pod on the A-10C and F-16 is specifically the AT, as-stated in their manuals.

 

 

That's right, ED also said that hornet will be getting ATFLIR.

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Spanish Hornets carry the II version

 

But doesn't Spanish navy have other pods as well than just LITENING II?

 

and EO pods optical limitations are poorly implemented in DCS, everything looks pristine and sharp

 

Well, it would be nice to get the more realistic look, lower resolution, soft rendering, FLIR that actually has narrow thermal capture rate so it is not so high contrast between HOT and COLD, but that is basically the 3D models and terrain thermal texture difference.

 

As well would be interesting to find that what actual zoom does the newer pods has, as all other points to digital zooming outside the 2/3 magnification rates (WFOV, and MFOV, NFOV) that would render the zoomed in to be much much softer.

 

It is difficult to see from the old videos that are recorded on VHS tapes and then digitalized, but if done well, they don't ruin the image quality that much when put in the context that they are suppose to be seen from a tiny low resolution LCD screens, instead a large 4K displays/TV's on your face...

 

But something should be done for the DCS rendering engine to reflect better the optical targeting systems limitations, like Shkval should be fairly.... bad as an example.

Now the Hornet does have nice softening effect for the FLIR, but it disappears when you zoom in, so it actually becomes more sharper, detailed and contrasty. So the effect is not applied to video before it gets zoomed in.

 

 

 

Comparing that what manufacturer shows now with the pure digital reproduction, they are very fancy targeting pods.

 

https://www.northropgrumman.com/wp-content/uploads/LITENING_Desert_NGC.mp4

https://www.northropgrumman.com/wp-content/uploads/LITENING-advanced-targeting-pod-color-air-to-ground-imagery.jpg

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That's right, ED also said that hornet will be getting ATFLIR.

 

Wasn't it cancelled due lack of documentation?

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Spanish Hornets carry the II version, although SAF Eurofighters are fitted with more modern iterations, and EO pods optical limitations are poorly implemented in DCS, everything looks pristine and sharp

 

 

Indeed. My biggest gripe is the digital zoom (the zoom levels, not FOV levels), which keeps the same resolution whatever the zoom level.

 

 

There are very public documents describing the behavior of the digital zoom levels, such as this one: https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6123&context=utk_gradthes

 

 

On page 24 (38 in the PDF):

 

In the narrow field of view, at zoom level of 6, the image presented is a 1/3-deg by 1/3-deg field ofview (171 by 171 pixels available for image presentation due to digital zoom.) This is the most used level for final picture clarity as it offers the most zoom with the least degradation in picture quality in the opinion of the author.

So while the pod is 512x512, a zoom on level 6 leads to a resolution of only 171x171.

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Yes it has been discussed already, we have the spanish TPOD version, we will be getting ATFLIR later on.

 

 

 

As for F-16 the AN/AAQ-28 LITENING AT Targeting Pod is in the manual as well as in the Planned F-16C Systems and Payloads thread on the F-16 forum.

 

 

 

So I guess we just have to wait and see.

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It

probably what they modeled for the f18 was the spanish nitehawk pod (lince) an/aas-38b

 

Yeah, SAF also operate the old nitehawk in the ex-USN hornets bought second hand during the 90s. But the display symbology is different, so definitely is not a nitehawk


Edited by amalahama



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Indeed. My biggest gripe is the digital zoom (the zoom levels, not FOV levels), which keeps the same resolution whatever the zoom level.

 

 

There are very public documents describing the behavior of the digital zoom levels, such as this one: https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6123&context=utk_gradthes

 

 

On page 24 (38 in the PDF):

 

 

So while the pod is 512x512, a zoom on level 6 leads to a resolution of only 171x171.

 

And that 171 x 171 px is nicely soft to begin, so you are looking a mush in a mush on mushy terrain.

 

As explained:

 

As the pilot zooms the display, the Tpod employs a digital zoom so the actual

number of pixels never changes. However, the Tpod employs a variety of functions to

help improve the quality of the digital zoom picture and help avoid pixilation such as

image derotation and image enhancement. Image derotation is an electronic derotation of

the image vice mechanical. This allows the Tpod the ability to recover high spatial

23

frequency information. The increase in the high spatial frequency retained in the

derotation yields an effective improvement in the quality of the image at a particular

zoom level. Image enhancement is a technique by which the image is convoluted by

sharpening and enhancing the image on a pixel-by-pixel basis. In addition, multiple

video frames are integrated to increase the signal to noise ratio by the square root of the

frames integrated. Typically, only four frames are integrated due to time requirements.

This reduces noise by a factor of two, improving the clarity of the original scene in

display images [ 4].

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Not to hijack this thread (although I guess it’s still relatable) but when did we get the ability to see a representation of where the TPOD is looking in the HUD when slewing around (and when in snowplow mode and when a target is designated)?

 

Edit: just came across

GR vid
Edited by obious

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Not to hijack this thread (although I guess it’s still relatable) but when did we get the ability to see a representation of where the TPOD is looking in the HUD when slewing around (and when in snowplow mode and when a target is designated)?

 

Edit: just came across

GR vid

 

 

I think with the latest update.

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As for the optical limitations, it should be calculated as 114/[lens diameter in milimeters]. This should provide a recognition capability in arc-seconds.

 

For example if the large lens diameter is 80mm (don't know this), the math is 114/80=1.425, which means that two equally bright objects with an angular distance of 1.425 arc-seconds or higher should be distinguishable (not appear as one). Otherwise they should appear as a single object (light from both objects should merge between them).

 

 

This is basic astronomy math for direct observation but as far as I know, a camera with short shutter doesn't provide much of an improvement (if any).

 

Of course the (blurry) image would then be stacked with previous three frames using median blend (as mentioned by a post above) to form the final image.

 

Another thing that seems to be forgotten here is light amplification. Amount of light that the lens can capture is much higher compared to a human eye. This noticably increases contrast of the image. Amplification can be calculated simply as [lens surface area]/[pi*7*7] where the second value is surface area of fully expanded eye pupil. In the game, there seems to be an amplification of 1 for both lenses on the TPOD, which can't be true and results in low contrast in some cases.

 

All of this math expects perfect optics and calculated data will unavoidably be slightly worse on a real optical instrument.

 

I hope I didn't mess up this post in some way.

 

I think I should also add that 1 arc-second is a distance of 1cm at a range of 2.1 km.

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Here's an edit of what I think the TPOD image should look like. I just blured the image for somewhat realistic optical performance (based on these two T-90s) and scaled it to 171 pixels width (upscaled back with bicubic interpolation). Please excuse the noise around the text. It's because I did the whole thing in a very simple way.

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=239581&stc=1&d=1591968302

 

Also I noticed that the FLIR image looks pretty convincing so maybe they are also planning to do the same for the CCD image.

548229930_DCSHornetTPOD.thumb.jpg.a6c3030b948b7f5e72b2be5472fb6296.jpg

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Here's an edit of what I think the TPOD image should look like. I just blured the image for somewhat realistic optical performance (based on these two T-90s) and scaled it to 171 pixels width (upscaled back with bicubic interpolation). Please excuse the noise around the text. It's because I did the whole thing in a very simple way.

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=239581&stc=1&d=1591968302

 

Also I noticed that the FLIR image looks pretty convincing so maybe they are also planning to do the same for the CCD image.

 

Isn't that zoom level 9, so it should be even less than 171 x 171 px?

 

I think the proper method is first to scale the screen to the 640 x 512 and apply optical softening. Then rescale it to appropriate zoom level and apply to it a sharpening.

 

Of course we can't start applying a deconvolution for each frame as our CPU/GPU can't handle it at real time like a processors designed for it can, but we can simply at least make a slight sharpening to compensate to it.

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Isn't that zoom level 9, so it should be even less than 171 x 171 px?

 

I think the proper method is first to scale the screen to the 640 x 512 and apply optical softening. Then rescale it to appropriate zoom level and apply to it a sharpening.

 

Of course we can't start applying a deconvolution for each frame as our CPU/GPU can't handle it at real time like a processors designed for it can, but we can simply at least make a slight sharpening to compensate to it.

 

 

It should indeed be less than 171x171. If we consider each zoom levels to be a scaling by the same factor, zoom level 9 should be 99x99 (with a scaling factor of about 0.833).

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  • 2 weeks later...

It would be nice to see these targeting pods resolutions truly lowered so one can't really see far with them or identify targets too easily.

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Where do you guys get this info?

 

Its all publicly available.

 

Moreover anyone with any sort of background in EOS sensors will take a quick look at DCS T-pods and :megalol:.... I mean DCS doesn't even model basic things like the Dirunal cycle. And the fact they can't see through smoke and some other obscurants. I mean really really basic stuff.

 

DCS doesn't model atmospheric effects, and image degradation. Nor problems with image stabilization and aircraft vibration. Nor do they model issues with earlier FLIRS for calibration drifts or having to recalibrate the pod periodically to account for sensor drift.

 

For GBU's it doesn't model spot jitter or other issues with lasing under poor atmospheric conditions. ETC...

 

For litening II

 

FLIR

LITENING II used a MWIR 320x256 staring array (I believe AT as well)

LITENING II ER used a MWIR 640x512 staring array (improved zoom to 1 deg fov) ~2001

LITENING II G4 FLIR uses a MWIR 1024x1024 starting array with a larger arpature as well as SWIR imager (which can also be used in an "active mode" to detect returns from synchronized laser pulses. (this is a much more recent pod, doubt we see it in DCS)

 

For comparsion the version of ATFLIR I think we are supposed to get used a 640x480 MWIR imager so its actually worse in that regime than then Litening II ER but better than the original.

 

What these numbers also lack is a basic understanding of the technologies used to make the sensor as well as sensor pitch which, up to a certain point will produce better looking images even at the "same" resolution. Though it is fair to assume for a give "era" sensor pitch is likely similar between sensors.

 

Visible:

Litening II/AT Analog CCD 762x480 res

Litening II ER got a 1024x1024 CCD

Litening II G4 Uses a Color CCD (res not specified, probably 1024 or better).

 

G4 also uses a better diode pumped laser than the earlier models with better output and better divergence properties (read longer range).

 

Based on this sort of data its also fairly straightforward to model detection ranges of various objects using Johnson Criteria. Which in DCS are rather optimistic. Nor are things like the fact that the images can be transmitted to JTAC's or other network participants modeled.

 

Of course then the other issue is that "in flight" results, are rather different than "perfect" lab results... For example for LANTRIN... Yes, open source from like 35 years ago...

1373200168_Lantrininflightvslabtest.PNG.71293a58ce2a88dde782267964e8e402.PNG


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Its all publicly available.

 

Moreover anyone with any sort of background in EOS sensors will take a quick look at DCS T-pods and :megalol:.... I mean DCS doesn't even model basic things like the Dirunal cycle. And the fact they can't see through smoke and some other obscurants. I mean really really basic stuff.

 

DCS doesn't model atmospheric effects, and image degradation. Nor problems with image stabilization and aircraft vibration. Nor do they model issues with earlier FLIRS for calibration drifts or having to recalibrate the pod periodically to account for sensor drift.

 

For GBU's it doesn't model spot jitter or other issues with lasing under poor atmospheric conditions. ETC...

 

For litening II

 

FLIR

LITENING II used a MWIR 320x256 staring array (I believe AT as well)

LITENING II ER used a MWIR 640x512 staring array (improved zoom to 1 deg fov) ~2001

LITENING II G4 FLIR uses a MWIR 1024x1024 starting array with a larger arpature as well as SWIR imager (which can also be used in an "active mode" to detect returns from synchronized laser pulses. (this is a much more recent pod, doubt we see it in DCS)

 

For comparsion the version of ATFLIR I think we are supposed to get used a 640x480 MWIR imager so its actually worse in that regime than then Litening II ER but better than the original.

 

What these numbers also lack is a basic understanding of the technologies used to make the sensor as well as sensor pitch which, up to a certain point will produce better looking images even at the "same" resolution. Though it is fair to assume for a give "era" sensor pitch is likely similar between sensors.

 

Visible:

Litening II/AT Analog CCD 762x480 res

Litening II ER got a 1024x1024 CCD

Litening II G4 Uses a Color CCD (res not specified, probably 1024 or better).

 

G4 also uses a better diode pumped laser than the earlier models with better output and better divergence properties (read longer range).

 

Based on this sort of data its also fairly straightforward to model detection ranges of various objects using Johnson Criteria. Which in DCS are rather optimistic. Nor are things like the fact that the images can be transmitted to JTAC's or other network participants modeled.

 

Of course then the other issue is that "in flight" results, are rather different than "perfect" lab results... For example for LANTRIN... Yes, open source from like 35 years ago...

 

True dat!

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Been watching LANTIRN and WMD-7 videos on YouTube as I don’t have the -14 or Jeff. Why can ED not get us FLIR images that look like that? So much better than the effects we’re seeing with the LITENING... and the LANTIRN should be an inferior pod!

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