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Comment by kzsh | Hacker News Reader

> Flares, the standard IR countermeasure, are less effective against imaging IR seekers that can distinguish an aircraft shape from point-source decoys.

I think this is the most relevant 'new' piece of information from the article. IR missiles are not new, but IR missiles that can distinguish between aircraft and decoys might be.

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Well, imaging IR seekers aren’t new either. The imaging seeker program for the AIM-9X sidewinder started in 1996 and entered service in 2003.

An even earlier version, the AIM-9R was tested in 1990 before the budget was cut as part of the Cold War wind down. That’s 35 years ago.

Even earlier than that, a Soviet missile which became operational in 1984 (40 years ago!), the R-74, inspired the AIM-9R program.

So it’s not like imaging seekers were unknown to the people designing today’s generation of fighters.

Developers of "IR" seeking missiles have been trying to distinguish between aircraft and countermeasures since the very beginning. I say "IR" because the first really robust countermeasure-avoiding seekers were dual-band IR+UV and have been around for decades. IR+UV is useful because making a decoy that looks like jet exhaust in both IR and UV is quite difficult. Imaging "IR" is a bit more capable, particularly for all-aspect use, but once again this has existed for decades.

Worth pointing out that the Chinese have consumerized sufficiently high resolution thermal sensors with high enough frame rates to be used in a guidance system. I'd bet that Iran is taking advantage of those in this case.

This tech has been around for approaching half a century. It is only useful for short-range terminal guidance, which limits applicability.

I'm sure there's active "flarey" body heat modulation for missiles looking for plane bodies..

It's difficult to decoy because the missile's processor is programmed to know what typical aircraft profiles look like; for example a transport aircraft has two or four propellors with hot leading edges, numerous turbine exhausts and warm leading edges. A flare is a seen as a hot ball, in contrast.

To decoy that, the decoy needs to basically _be_ the aircraft.

they are certainly not, visual feature detection, multi sensor fusion and a whole raft of other techniques have been under active development and fielded in working systems for decades.

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