Ford Aerospace Corporation

Loral Aerospace Corp.

Byron Edwards

George W Stewart, Jr

The electronic simplicity of a rotating-telescope target acquisition device and the noise immunity and wide field of view of a non-rotating array device are combined in an assembly (10) using a rotating refractory telescope (21) on a gimbaled platform (28) and a combination reticle (38) and infrared detector array (34) on the same platform (28). The detector array (34) is segmented (50) to detect the direction in which a target is substantially off the telescope's optical axis (32), and the detector array (34) is also shielded (35) against any radiation coming from outside the optical path of the telescope (21). The reticle (38) also serves as the electrical connection (42,62) between the detector segments (40,50) and the contact pads (44,64) on the detector plate (36) and as a non-emitting shield against any external radiation.

Noise reducing infrared reticle/detector arrangement

The angle of divergence of a laser beam (29) is controlled without significant variation of beam power by using a movable corner cube (18) to vary the length of the optical path of a noncollimated beam (12) so as to present a beam of varying diameter to a telescope lens (26). In a second aspect of the invention, the beam is made insensitive to vibration of the corner cube (18) by covering a portion of its beam-receiving face with a second reflector (32) which causes the beam to make a second pass through the corner cube (18) in a parallel but opposite direction therey cancelling any beam displacement caused by the vibration of the corner cube (18).

Free expansion pseudo-zoom for laser projector

The electronic simplicity of a rotating-telescope target acquisition device and the noise immunity and wide field of view of a non-rotating array device are combined in an assembly (10) using a rotating refractory telescope (21) on a gimbaled platform (28), and a combination reticle (38) and detector (34) on the same platform (28). The detector (34) is segmented (50) to detect the direction in which a target is substantially off the telescope's optical axis (32), and the detector (34) is also shielded (35) against any radiation coming from outside the optical path of the telescope (21). The reticle (38) also serves as the electrical connection (42,62) between the detector segments (40,50) and the contact pads (44,64) on the detector plate (36).

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Orange, CA, United States of America

Byron Edwards