Purdue researchers working on missile-defense software

Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) researchers are peering into the future to help the United States foil enemy missile attacks. Working with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the research team is creating software that makes it possible to pose various "what-if" questions; scenarios that explore plausible future missile advances in adversarial nations and the defensive capability of the United States.

"Our mission is to look into the future, to say, for example, what if we had some new missile technology, or what if a country X had the capability to launch X number of missiles at the United States? What would we have to do to shoot them down?" said Daniel DeLaurentis, an associate professor in Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

The research focuses on how to defend against attacks called "raids" in which many missiles would be launched against the United States, said Saurabh Bagchi, a professor in Purdue's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "The system must be able to handle a raid environment, based, in part, on the assumption that our potential adversaries will expand their missile capabilities in the future," he said.