wmd-7 range is so low, is there a reason?

[SirPugsolot]

it feels at ground locking it has reduced range compared to other targeting pods in DCS

[uboats]

because wmd7 perf is weaker than them

[Napillo]

It's the laser, it has to get laser ranging to do ground stabilization and gps positioning of the selected target. The zoom is great, but the laser is weak.

[Dr_Pavelheer]

I'm not sure it's the WMD7 that is weak, I think it's the other targeting pods that are way overmodeled

[Napillo]

14 minutes ago, Dr_Pavelheer said:

I think it's the other targeting pods that are way overmodeled

comparatively, who's to say? I do agree though that you're more right than you know.

[Foogle]

The only thing that I can't accept is the constant snapping, where it drifts and then instantly snaps back, or the way it tracks A2A targets by snapping to a point, then when it updates it snaps to a new point; when it should follow the track of the target and actually attempt to smooth the movement. 

[DSplayer]

1 hour ago, Foogle said:

The only thing that I can't accept is the constant snapping, where it drifts and then instantly snaps back, or the way it tracks A2A targets by snapping to a point, then when it updates it snaps to a new point; when it should follow the track of the target and actually attempt to smooth the movement. 

The A2A tracking seems to be a thing that all TGPs in A2A mode do. Litening and ATFLIR do it and its super annoying but it could be realistic since it mostly happens when you're not in a STT mode.

[AeriaGloria]

1 hour ago, Foogle said:

The only thing that I can't accept is the constant snapping, where it drifts and then instantly snaps back, or the way it tracks A2A targets by snapping to a point, then when it updates it snaps to a new point; when it should follow the track of the target and actually attempt to smooth the movement. 

But it does. In that mode you mention it’s just following radar returns. Once you are within 20 nm the laser will work and you can Area track on target contrast, then you will have smooth movement. The other pods don’t model the finite range of the laser required for easy stabilization 

Surprsingly the real life placards seem to indicate 20 km instead of nm 

[Napillo]

7 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

But it does. In that mode you mention it’s just following radar returns.

Which is another reason why STT is better - your tpod will smoothly follow the target.

[Foogle]

16 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

But it does. In that mode you mention it’s just following radar returns. Once you are within 20 nm the laser will work and you can Area track on target contrast, then you will have smooth movement. The other pods don’t model the finite range of the laser required for easy stabilization 

Surprsingly the real life placards seem to indicate 20 km instead of nm 

A contrast lock should not require a laser return, if it did, then mavericks & walleyes wouldn't work. Force correlation and contrast locking were a solved problem by the late 1970s. 

As for A2A, the pod should not follow the individual returns, it should follow the track created by the computer. What a stupid idea, to spend all this time and effort to compute a predictive firing solution then only use the raw data for your other systems. It literally doesn't make sense. 

 

And as for the jumping on the ground, even if you do not have a laser lock, the 2hz update without any acceleration or deceleration that instantly snaps the pod around is not correct, unless the motors have infinite torque, but I'm going to assume that's not currently the case. There should be *some* smoothing simply because mechanically the pod has to slew to the point. 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Foogle

[Napillo]

4 hours ago, Foogle said:

A contrast lock should not require a laser return,

Yea, you'd think the radar should be able to give the tgp the distance, but it doesn't. It knows the angle its looking, and it knows what angle its mounted on your plane, and your plane knows where its radar is pointing, so all the data it needs is there. Point the radar at the same angle the tgp is looking, get the distance, and there you go, a rough estimate of the distance. It may be off by the difference between the location of the tpod camera and the radar, but that should also be a known and could be accounted for to get accurate enough, over certain ranges. 

[AeriaGloria]

5 hours ago, Foogle said:

A contrast lock should not require a laser return, if it did, then mavericks & walleyes wouldn't work. Force correlation and contrast locking were a solved problem by the late 1970s. 

As for A2A, the pod should not follow the individual returns, it should follow the track created by the computer. What a stupid idea, to spend all this time and effort to compute a predictive firing solution then only use the raw data for your other systems. It literally doesn't make sense. 

 

And as for the jumping on the ground, even if you do not have a laser lock, the 2hz update without any acceleration or deceleration that instantly snaps the pod around is not correct, unless the motors have infinite torque, but I'm going to assume that's not currently the case. There should be *some* smoothing simply because mechanically the pod has to slew to the point. 

 

I profess I never thought of that about contrast lock in WMD-7! I just always heard from Deka that INS stabilzation isn’t good enough at high zooms and distances and needs laser for proper stabilization 

[Dragon1-1]

A contrast lock does not require target range. It just requires a picture with the target clearly visible against the sky. You can do it from any range. Unless WMD-7 can't do a contrast lock, it shouldn't need a laser.

[Napillo]

There is no 'contrast lock' in game, at least not in any of the aircraft I fly... ever notice how you can only get a point track on live targets? like you cannot track dead targets at all except by 'area track'. You have enough contrast but it doesn't matter because the game doesn't simulate it.

[Dragon1-1]

The discussion is about the real TGPs, not DCS' innards. If you want to put it that way, DCS always knows where the objects are, anyway, so there's no reason why it would need to be in laser range. DCS very much does simulate contrast lock, what it doesn't do is emulate it. 

There was some talk about emulating contrast tracking, now that we have the new FLIR, but that's still far off.

[AeriaGloria]

6 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

The discussion is about the real TGPs, not DCS' innards. If you want to put it that way, DCS always knows where the objects are, anyway, so there's no reason why it would need to be in laser range. DCS very much does simulate contrast lock, what it doesn't do is emulate it. 

There was some talk about emulating contrast tracking, now that we have the new FLIR, but that's still far off.

What are your thoughts then on the reason the WMD-7 display placard says only 20 km for “detection distance?” There has to be some limitation or metric that that is listed 

[J20Stronk]

FYI everyone: the WMD-7 is FAR from finished. The lock mechanics are glorified FC3/Su-25T-level basic. It doesn't track contrast like the LITENINGs or LANTIRN; it just tracks the origin point of a 3D model. Heck it doesn't even have masking or boresight gimbal restrictions implemented, it's so very obviously unfinished.

[Dragon1-1]

5 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

What are your thoughts then on the reason the WMD-7 display placard says only 20 km for “detection distance?” There has to be some limitation or metric that that is listed 

Yes, the minimum size of a contact that can be tracked at max zoom, assuming the contact in question has a rectangular area 12 square meters in size. Notice that TV ranges are slightly longer, presumably because the TV camera has a larger zoom, as is often the case with TGPs.

Also notice that it only ever talks about air to ground in the text above the placard. So, on top of that, range might mean distance on the ground, and not slant range, which would be longer in that case.

[AeriaGloria]

7 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Yes, the minimum size of a contact that can be tracked at max zoom, assuming the contact in question has a rectangular area 12 square meters in size. Notice that TV ranges are slightly longer, presumably because the TV camera has a larger zoom, as is often the case with TGPs.

Also notice that it only ever talks about air to ground in the text above the placard. So, on top of that, range might mean distance on the ground, and not slant range, which would be longer in that case.

That just seems really bad. A 12 m target at 20-22 km? That must be pretty big I would think at max zoom. But perhaps I underestimate it. 

[Dragon1-1]

12 square meters. A 2x6m rectangle, basically, a truck. 22km is likely over ground, so actual distance from the pod would be further than that, depending on how high you're flying. Yes, that's pretty low for a TGP, but maybe WMD-7 doesn't have much in terms of zoom.

[AeriaGloria]

4 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

12 square meters. A 2x6m rectangle, basically, a truck. 22km is likely over ground, so actual distance from the pod would be further than that, depending on how high you're flying. Yes, that's pretty low for a TGP, but maybe WMD-7 doesn't have much in terms of zoom.

Gonna go test in DCS for kicks! 

[Harlikwin]

On 8/31/2022 at 2:34 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

The discussion is about the real TGPs, not DCS' innards. If you want to put it that way, DCS always knows where the objects are, anyway, so there's no reason why it would need to be in laser range. DCS very much does simulate contrast lock, what it doesn't do is emulate it. 

There was some talk about emulating contrast tracking, now that we have the new FLIR, but that's still far off.

I think your guys terminology is a bit imprecise. 

I generally agree that it seems odd that the WMD7 cannot do something like an "area" track, usually this is done just using image comparison, techniques like edge detection matching etc. That being said, while this type technology was originally developed for pods like LANTIRN, IDK if the WMD7 would have this tech or not. But its not exactly a "contrast lock", its more sophisticated. But to me it seems like 2000's era TGP would likely have this capability as the algorithms are generally known and processing (which was the original issue) at this point is no longer a limit.

Where you have to break that out is can you generate actually usable coordinates from it for targeting weapons. For the best case of that with highly precise coordinates (like a tank) that you most likely do need an actual laser defined point on the ground. That being said there are angle rate tracking techniques to get rough ranges and "coordinates" that are employed by western pods, but IDK if the WMD-7 would necessarily do this. And the issue with these coordinates is that they will be wrong from longer ranges. No one use <profanity> like TOO for long range targeting for JSOW's or JDAMs etc. and this is something ED and other devs have gotten absolutely wrong.

 

You can easily check the range of WMD 7 for detection of objects using johnson criteria if you know the sensor FOV, the sensor pixel count. But 22km doesn't seem to bad to me for those sized targets. 

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Harlikwin

[Dragon1-1]

37 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

But its not exactly a "contrast lock", its more sophisticated. 

We're talking about point track, which is, more or less, a contrast lock. Image comparison is used for scene tracking, and is a feature on the more advanced pods. AFAIK, earlier ones could be ground-stabilized by using the gyros. Likewise, if you know where you are, and where the pod is pointing, simple geometry gives you a rough estimate of coordinates at the point in question. Of course, this would fail if altitude data is off, in DCS it doesn't, suggesting a more sophisticated processing based on image motion detection (more or less the same deal as inside-out tracking in a VR headset), but I don't know if that's correct, particularly for early systems.

[Harlikwin]

48 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

We're talking about point track, which is, more or less, a contrast lock. Image comparison is used for scene tracking, and is a feature on the more advanced pods. AFAIK, earlier ones could be ground-stabilized by using the gyros. Likewise, if you know where you are, and where the pod is pointing, simple geometry gives you a rough estimate of coordinates at the point in question. Of course, this would fail if altitude data is off, in DCS it doesn't, suggesting a more sophisticated processing based on image motion detection (more or less the same deal as inside-out tracking in a VR headset), but I don't know if that's correct, particularly for early systems.

Modern point tracks are way more processed than "contrast" lock. But at any rate, I thought you were talking about being able to cue the pod at longer ranges and have it be stabilized. I guess its possible its not, but that implies a much lower capability than the date it was built would suggest as well as the rest of the components used. 

Well the issue with "simple geometry" is that it is in fact not simple. You have errors and error propagation for coordinate generation starting with the basic fact most aircraft only know their own absolute location within a few to 10s of meters with GPS. From there you have additional problems with pointing accuracy and so forth. Your primary sources of error are Ownship position error, Operator error (is it really on the right pixel), then you have heading error, bearing error, alignment error, pointing error, and range errors which then result in altitude errors which is generally why you need that laser range. So you will have pretty large CEP and LEP at longer range. So yeah, depending on the actual range to a target you have "rough" coordinates, maybe enough target a big building, but not a tank or truck.

 

 

[Dragon1-1]

37 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

You have errors and error propagation for coordinate generation starting with the basic fact most aircraft only know their own absolute location within a few to 10s of meters with GPS.

Modern military GPS is way more accurate than that. A modern pod would have an integrated elevation map, and be able to determine, from ownship GPS location and TGP pointing angle alone, the location and elevation of the target with reasonable accuracy. Not as perfect as we have it in DCS, but it can be done. You do need to lase in order to, say, drop a JDAM, but for simply marking the enemy unit on the map, it's more than good enough. 

WMD7 is not the most advanced pod in the world, in fact, it seems to be sort of a low cost export TGP. It's certainly not quite as capable as, say, ATFLIR.