IR Signature Suppression Systems

There are many sources of IR signature on a ship and they must be addressed using a balanced approach – it is not cost effective to appreciably reduce one source of IR signature while ignoring another. Examples of external sources of signature are solar heating and the background signature. Examples of internal sources are: engine exhaust stacks and plumes, and internal heat sources conducting through the ship skin. Davis supplies hardware to suppress the signature from both exhaust uptakes and the ship skin.

IR Signature Measurement Services

We also have extensive experience in conducting IR measurement sea trials of naval ships.

IR Signature Management Services

Davis provides IR signature management services, where we produce an IR model of the ship, recommend treatments and IR suppression systems, and predict the whole ship IR signature.

Passive infrared homing is used in both first and current generation sea skimming anti-ship missiles and IR enabled surveillance aircraft.

Countermeasures against IR missiles fall into two broad categories: hard kill; and soft kill. Hard kill aims to destroy the incoming missile, while soft kill defeats the missile by causing it to home on another source of IR energy. An effective survivability strategy employs both hard and soft kill countermeasure.

Most modern warships are equipped with both flare and IR suppression technology. A flare is most effective if it can be deployed prior to the incoming missile detecting and locking on to the ship – once the missile locks on to the ship, it is hard to seduce it away. If the missile first locks on to a flare, it is distracted from ever finding the ship. This is the critical role that IR signature management plays in soft kill – it enables the combat system to detect the missile and launch flares before the missile can lock on the ship.

Davis supplies hardware, software, and services to assist our clients in designing and building low IR observable ships.

ShipIR/NTCS

The IR signature of a ship can be modeled and predicted with the software ShipIR/NTCS, which continues to be developed and commercially supplied by Davis. ShipIR is the NATO standard for Naval IR signature prediction and is the only naval IR signature prediction code accredited by the U.S. Navy.