AFRL Establishes AMIST for Focused Warhead Development Published Dec. 4, 2006 By Munitions Directorate AFRL/MN EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- AFRL and the Department of Energy's Kansas City Plant are collaborating to provide ordnance designers the initiation tools necessary for developing focused warheads, such as the dual-role munition. These advanced weapons will require an interdisciplinary technical solution that incorporates aerodynamic, energetic, warhead, target detection, and initiation system technologies. One of the tools currently in development is the Adaptable Miniature Initiation System Technology (AMIST), which is a multipoint initiation system designed to detonate explosive warheads. AFRL is developing a distributed multipoint initiation system that has highly accurate and precise timing between fire points. Precision multipoint initiation gives warhead designers the ability to control the detonation front from a weapon via the initiation sequence of fire points located within the explosive fill. The resulting munition is able to bias the path of its fragments and thus increase the explosive energy directed towards the selected target. The current system architecture, AMIST Configuration II, can program multiple fire points to operate autonomously upon disconnect from the controller. Users can program the fire points to fire simultaneously or sequentially (with negligible timing error).