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The development of reliable techniques for mission planning and mission rehearsal require the availability of a large number of images from a variety of sensors so that the system operators and pilots can adequately plan and rehearse the missions under realistic scenarios. Conversely, the development of databases for evaluating the performance of algorithms developed to perform automatic target recognition or terminal homing require a significant number of images, but fewer and covering less area than the imagery required for mission training and mission rehearsal. However, the target recognition and terminal homing images must be of significantly higher quality to avoid introducing artifacts into the imagery which would make the algorithms perform better than would be the case against real-world imagery. This paper will define a general conunon database (COB) structure which can be used to generate imagery for a variety of sensors. The sensors for which general structures will be defined include thermal infrared (TIR), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), millimeter wave (MMW) radar and laser radar (LADAR). These general structures have been used to convert color infrared (CIR) imagery to TIR and SAR for a mission rehearsal application. This structure development is initiated by defining the three main considerations of application area, speed of processing and image quality. These three considerations are highly interrelated and impose constraints on the types of algorithm architectures which are feasible for developing the required database. The top-level structure for the COB is composed of both dynamic and stationary files. The stationary files are fixed for each scenario and the dynamic files may change under the control of the event control module. The main components of the dynamic files, stationary files and event control module will be defined with specific examples presented for each of these modules. The COB structure is developed in a modular nature so that additional information and new sensors concepts can be easily added as system and mission requirements change. In addition, the issues of validation of the CDB will be addressed as it applies to the expected usage of the COB.
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