Development of a high performance HWIL missile test facility using standard PC architecture and COTS hardware

This paper covers the design &development of a system capable ofGenerating IR imagery capable of testing an IR imaging based missile system in a full projection HWIL enviroment.Generating IR imagery and all other signals necessary to test an IR imaging based missile processing unit on the bench.Capturing &analyzing missile outputs allowing full test and debug of the UUT It aims to show that the recent advances in both PC and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology has made such a system technically feasible. It also aims to show that the use of standard PC components and Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) FPGA boards brings significant benefits to the development of such a system. These benefits include low cost, rapid development, access to a wider technology base and robustness against obsolescence. In particular it shows how the use of FPGA products gives the flexibility in function to allow the design to address its two different goals.© 2001 SPIE.