Thales

Sextant Avionique

Thomson-csf

Bruno Barbier

Siegfried Rouzes

Patrick Lach

Laurent Potin

Jean-Noel Perbet

Jean-Jacques Favot

Jean-Blaise Migozzi

Jean N Perbet

Alain Leger

Jean-Claude Ebert

Serge Ediar

Jean Brun

Jean J Favoi

The general field of the invention is that of systems for detecting the posture of a moving object. The system may include a fixed electro-optical device of known orientation comprising an emission source, an image sensor and image analysis means, and an optical assembly comprising an optical retroreflector arranged on the moving object. The optical retroreflector of the system is an optical sphere of variable index comprising a transparent hemisphere and a reflecting hemisphere. It comprises a meshing comprising at least three opaque wires, of small thickness and known geometrical arrangement. The image of the retroreflector lit by the source forms a reflection on the image sensor, said reflection comprising at least the two images of the shadow of one of the three wires. The image analysis means detect the orientation of the leak line given by said images, said orientation being representative of one of the parameters of the posture of the moving object.

Posture detection system with retroreflector comprising a wire-meshing

The general field of the invention is that of systems for detecting the posture of a mobile object in space. The system according to the invention comprises an electro-optical device comprising a light source, a photoreceptor and means of analysis, and a retro-reflecting cube corner disposed on the mobile object. The cube corner comprises a mask disposed on its entry face. The source emits a parallel or almost-parallel pencil beam. The electro-optical device comprises means for deviating, about a fixed point, the said pencil beam of light by an angle varying as a function of time. The photoreceptor is configured for receiving the pencil beam of light retro-reflected by the cube corner. The means of analysis are configured in such a manner as to determine, based on the signal coming from the photoreceptor, the position of a number of points representative of the borders of the mask and, using this positional information, the posture of the cube corner in space.

Optical system for posture detection comprising a scanning light source and a cube corner

The general field of the invention is that of systems for detecting the posture of a mobile object. The systems according to the invention comprise a fixed electro-optical device comprising an emission source and a photosensitive sensor. The optical corner cube is arranged on the mobile object. The entry face of the corner cube has a predetermined geometry, the light coming from the source and reflected back by the corner cube forming a luminous contour on the matrix sensor. The fixed electro-optical device comprises an optical element with a known shape and location, which is placed in the vicinity of the said source and is arranged so as to form a dark zone in the central part of the luminous contour. The detection system comprises analysis means determining the position and the orientation of the mobile object from knowledge of the vanishing points of the luminous contour and the position and shape of the dark zone.

Optical system for measurement of orientation and position comprising a point source, central mask, photosensitive matrix sensor and corner cube

The overall field of the invention is that of systems for detecting the posture of a moving object in space. The device according to the invention comprises: a fixed electrooptical device comprising a point emission source, a telecentric lens comprising a projection lens, a reception lens and a semireflective optical element and a photosensitive matrix-type sensor, the point emission source being arranged at the common focal point of the projection lens and of the reception lens by reflection or transmission through the semireflective optical element, and; an assembly comprising at least three corner cube retroreflectors which are arranged on the moving object. The main application of this device is the detection of the orientation of an aircraft pilot helmet.

Optical system for measuring the orientation of a helmet using corner cubes and a telecentric emission lens

The field of the invention is that of optical systems for detecting the posture of a mobile object in space. The system comprises an electro-optical fixed device of known orientation comprising a first point emission source, a telecentric emission/reception optic and a photosensitive matrix sensor. An assembly comprising an optical cubic wedge is disposed on the mobile object. The input face of the cubic wedge comprises a mask in the shape of a parallelogram, each side of the parallelogram comprising a geometric marking making it possible to identify it, the image of the mask projected on the photosensitive matrix sensor, by reflection on the faces of the cubic wedge, being the intersection of the projection of the mask and of the projection of its image inverted with respect to the centeR of the cubic wedge. Analysis of this image makes it possible to determine the orientation of the cubic wedge.

Optical system for measuring orientation with cubic wedge and mask

The general field of the invention is that of systems for the optical detection of the orientation and the position of a mobile object in space. The system comprises a fixed electro-optical device comprising a transmission point source, image analysis means and an optical cube corner disposed on the mobile object. The input surface of the cube corner comprises a polygonal-shaped mask, the sides of which comprise a geometric marking to identify them. The fixed electro-optical device comprises photosensitive means close to the point source and disposed in two different recording planes and recording two luminous shapes in perspective of the mask obtained by reflection on the surfaces of the cube corner. The image analysis means comprise means for determining the vanishing points of the two luminous shapes in the two recording planes, the knowledge of the four vanishing points enabling the determination of the position and orientation of the optical cube corner in relation to the fixed electro-optical device.

Optical system for measuring orientation and position without image formation with point source and mask

The electro-optical system for determining position and orientation of a mobile part comprises a fixed projector having a center of projection (O) and a mobile part. The projector is rigidly linked with a virtual image plane, and the mobile part is rigidly linked with two linear sensors defining a first and a second direction vector. The fixed part projects onto the image plane and onto the sensors patterns, not represented, forming at least two secant networks of at least three segments that are each parallel. The two electro-optical devices are coplanar and their directions secant, the orientation and the position of the mobile part are determined by calculating the positions of the projections on the image plane of a first triple of points comprising the projections of three points.

System for optically detecting position and/or orientation of objects comprising at least two coplanar sensors

The optical device for determining position and orientation of an object comprising a fixed part comprises a laser beam projector with sequential scan and a projection centre (O), defining the centre of a reference frame (R) in space. The projector emits, in a zone comprising at least four sensors fixed to the said object, the four sensors having a known disposition on the object. The instants at which each of the sensors provides an electrical pulse determine the angular directions of the said sensors in the reference frame, the four straight lines passing through the origin and through each of the sensors intercepting an image plane of the fixed part at four projected points. The positions in the image plane of the mappings of the four points determine a geometric shape making it possible to calculate the position and the orientation of the object in space.

Optical scanning-based system for detecting position and/or orientation of objects

A method for the analysis of a message given by an interaction device to a system of man-machine dialog includes three consecutive steps, a first step of syntactic analysis, a second step of semantic analysis and a third step of execution analysis. The syntactic analysis assesses the conformity of a message given by the interaction device with a predefined form of dialog, the semantic analysis assesses the meaning of the request made by the operator engaging in dialog with the machine, and the execution analysis determines the performance of an action to be undertaken coming from the step of semantic analysis. The invention finds particular application in systems of man-machine dialog having many kinds of interaction such as speech, gesture, and expressions.

Method and device for the analysis of a message given by interaction

A device determining the orientation of a first solid body with respect to a second or reference solid body. Each body is filled with sets consisting of an optical source and a detector of optical radiation, so as to define at least two straight lines having a direction u and v joining two pairs of sources (S.sub.mi, S.sub.fj), the sources (S.sub.mi) relating to the first solid body and the sources (S.sub.fj) relating to the reference solid body. The device includes means to compute the parameters of orientation of the first solid body with respect to the reference solid body from the coordinates of the vectors u and v. Applications: Determining the orientation of a helmet of the pilot of an aircraft or helicopter with respect to a cockpit.

Optical device for determining the orientation of a solid body

The invention concerns a system for the management of an interaction system between a man (41) and a machine (12). Data input into the system are output by interaction devices (1, 2, 3, 4) from the man to the machine. At least two functions (7, 8, 9, 10) operate simultaneously on data (24, 25, 26), data input into the system being processed by a first function (7), the result of one function forming input data for the next function. The result of the last function (10) is output to interaction devices (11) from the system to the man. Functions are synchronized with each other by an exchange protocol.

Management method for a man-machine interaction system

A system of retro-illumination for optical valves integrated into a system of projection is constituted by a plane array of slotted fluorescent tubes, parallel to one another, associated with a plane array of longitudinal lenses parallel to the tubes and spaced out substantially by the same pitch. This system is a compact high-output system. It enables an easy gradation of the luminous level as well as the obtaining a trichromatic sequential retro-illumination without moving parts.

Light box for optical valve

An instrument system to make settings and verify that the pupil of an eye of a wearer of a helmet designed to receive a piece of optoelectronic equipment itself having a pupil truly coincides with the wearer's pupil, wherein the instrument system includes first and second optical devices whose position with respect to the helmet is fixed, and a first screen and a second screen E.sub.1 and E.sub.2, each including a reference-marking test pattern, the position of the helmet with respect to the wearer being accurate only if the image of the wearer's eye through the first optical means and the image through the second optical means, of a target on which the wearer's line of view is fixed, are respectively well-positioned with respect to the test patterns of the screens E.sub.1 and E.sub.2. In the preferred embodiment, the screens E.sub.1 and E.sub.2 are merged into a single screen E through an optical device partially common to the first and second optical devices.

Device to check the setting of the position and orientation of a helmet

The device includes a source of white images, a liquid crystal matrix to control the hue and a liquid crystal matrix to control the saturation of the images displayed.

Optimized color display device which uses a matrix to control the hue

The modulation by optical valves of three beam coming from a main or auxiliary primary beam of depolarized and collimated white light is achieved by means of two secondary beams of white light that are linearly polarized and perpendicular to each other. The undesirable color components are suppressed to constitute the three constituent color beams of the color image. Through the invention, the geometrical and spectral quality of the image is independent of the main or auxiliary primary beam and the image is as powerful as the one obtained by the standard method of projection. The auxiliary image can be used as a back-up or can be adapted to night-time projection.

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Bordeaux, France

Bruno Barbier