Sensor Testing Support & Resources


The bulk of sensor testing at WSMR occurs in our open air test range.  This exposes the sensor to a real world environment, facilitating full system performance testing.

A list of advantages WSMR offers include:

  • WSMR controls their own air space and it is the largest land test range in the country at over 150 nm contiguous land space (extensions with coordination to 200 nm). Widely varying terrain, ranging from desert plains to mountains to high-altitude forest, and climatic conditions provide realistic operational conditions.
  • Joint Operations are possible with Air Force, Navy, and Army units such as AWACS, Aegis, Patriot, and others.  Annual Army network experiments involving 1000's of soldiers are excellent opportunities to explore sensor performance in a brigade environment.
  • ECM, chaff, IR and other countermeasure environments are available. GPS jamming is available.
  • Full range of environmental facilities for sensor testing include nuclear, electromagnetic, climatic, shock, and vibration.
  • Wide range of ground and aerial target speeds from static to walking to highway to subsonic to high-Mach.
  • Highly accurate instrumented range allows for track validation.  Tracking devices include high-resolution optics (Range optics, SeaLite Beam Director), C and X band radars, GPS and Laser radars.  Accurately surveyed static targets for calibration are also available.  Highly capable fixed and mobile telemetry systems.
  • Vast history of air and ground-based sensors testing at WSMR.  UAV and aerostat-mounted sensors have been tested at WSMR.
  • Dedicated targets:
    • Manned fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft such as UH-1, UH-72, AT-38 and C-12;
    • Full-size and subscale drones such as the QF-4, MQM-107, BQM-34 and BQM-74;
    • Static and remote-controlled mobile ground targets such as buildings, caves, trucks and tanks;
    • UAVs;
    • Missiles;
    • Real and simulated threat systems such as Scuds and surrogates;
    • Aerial Cable Facility.
  • Targets of opportunity include the above dedicated targets when they support other programs and:
    • Bombs, artillery shells, and submunitions;
    • Missiles systems under test such as Patriot, Hellfire, Navy Standard Missile, Tomahawk, GMLRS, ATACMS and JASSM;
    • Manned fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft such as F-16, F-22, Tornado, Apache and UH-60;
    • UAVs;
    • Suborbital rockets;
    • Land targets such as vehicles and simulated urban villages.