Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, as Represented by the Minister

Her Majesty the Queen, as Represented by the Minister of National

Andre Cantin

Jacques Dubois

Maurice Gravel

An opto-electronic device for detecting a beam of radiation and determining the angle-of-arrival of that beam with a high degree of angular resolution. The device has a linear array of radiation detectors arranged in a plane with a shadow mask located at a predetermined height h above and parallel to that plane wherein the shadow mask has a plurality of transparent apertures separated by opaque areas. Each radiation detector in the array comprises at least one pair of individual detector elements and apertures of the shadow mask, which apertures have the same width as the detector elements, are centred directly above the area between adjacent detector elements. Signals generated by corresponding detector elements in each radiation detector are supplied, in parallel, to one channel providing a number of output channels which correspond to the number of individual detector elements in each radiation detector. The angle-of-arrival of a radiation beam emitted by a source and traversing the apertures can then be determined by output signals from the channels. This radiation beam detecting device is particularly designed for use in Laser Warning Receivers which detect, identify and locate laser sources associated with laser guided weapons.

Analog high resolution laser irradiation detector (HARLID)

An apparatus for detecting a beam of radiation, such as a collimated laser beam, and determining the angle-of-arrival of that beam with a high angular resolution, the apparatus comprising a linear array of radiation detectors arranged in a plane and a digital Gray code shadow mask, located at a predetermined height above and parallel to the plane. The Gray code shadow mask is provided with parallel rows containing slot(s) with each of those rows being centrally positioned directly above one of the radiation detectors and arranged so that the rows are perpendicular to the linear array. The slot(s) in each row are located at predetermined distances from the center of a row with those distances differing for each row. A well collimated radiation beam, such as from a laser, directed towards the shadow mask will project images of the slots onto the plane with the positions of the images being dependent on both the positions of the slots and the angle-of-arrival of the beam. This will result, according to the digital Gray code, in some of the images being located on some of the radiation detectors, each of which will then generate an output signal, while some of the radiation detectors will be located in between the images of the slots and not generate any signal. Since the location of the images of the slots is dependent on the angle-of-arrival of the beam, that angle-of-arrival can then be determined from the outputs of all the radiation detectors.

Growing community of inventors

Loretteville, Canada

Andre Cantin