According to NATO reports and research, sensors will be one of the key words in future technological trends.
New, distributed, low-power, and sensitive sensors capable of large-scale mesh structures and self-organization (ubiquitous sensing). This includes the development of passive signal sources (such as bioengineering), biosensor analysis, fusion and evaluation, as well as the progress of multi-sensor/multi domain sources and edge computing.
In the next 20 years, the technological development of new sensor technologies will be very rapid. This development includes:
1. Biosensing technology is changing our lives and making humanity stronger. For example, smart textiles will have built-in molecular/nanoscale sensors to provide real-time health data; And it is expected that by 2030, environmental monitoring will also be popularized globally; There is also the integration of mechanical devices such as exoskeletons or replacement parts between humans and robots through sensors to improve human physiological and neurological performance.
2. The next generation of over the horizon (OTH) and passive radar systems will provide wide area airspace surveillance and adopt advanced data processing and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technology.
Within 5-10 years, passive over the horizon radar is likely to develop into a mature prototype. And the system will be fully deployed within 10-15 years, and the target detection distance can be increased from 350 kilometers to 1500 kilometers in the time and space.
In the long run, quantum sensing will trigger a revolution in sensing technology—— Enable ultra-high sensitivity sensors to conduct remote detection activities on aircraft, submarines, or underground. This capability allows for the development of smaller and higher performance sensors to monitor the health and performance of weapon systems.
Relying on a wide range of embedded sensors, the use of digital twins will become increasingly common in the next decade, including networks related to human and information related to such systems.
5. Computational imaging (CI) is expected to revolutionize EO/IR sensors, providing significantly improved sensitivity.
CI refers to image formation technology, which uses digital computing to restore images of a scene. And compressive sensing (CS), abbreviated as CI subset, includes capturing a small number of specially designed measurement values from the scene to calculate and restore images or task specific scene information. CS has the potential to use smaller arrays to obtain images with information content similar to large format arrays, with lower cost and bandwidth. More importantly, data collection can be designed to capture specific tasks and task related information more flexibly as guidance for scenario content.
CI can reduce system size, weight, power, and cost when enabled, while achieving target capture and situational awareness (multi-channel imaging), extended sensing range (non line of sight imaging, multispectral imaging), and multi-purpose imaging.
6. Microwave photonics will provide higher performance, lower power, and more powerful sensing and wireless communication on the battlefield.
