Electronics & Space Corporation

Kent Luetkemeyer

John R Wootton

Gregory L Hobson

Apparatus (10) for acquiring and tracking a missile (M), and guiding it to a target (T). Beacons (18, 19) are carried on the missile to provide an indication of its location in a field of view. One beacon (18) is a xenon beacon which emits energy in a short wave-length portion of the light spectrum. The other beacon (19) is a thermal source which emits infrared radiation in a longer wave-length portion of the spectrum. A sight unit (20) includes both a xenon beacon detector and a forward looking infrared receiver (FLIR). The FLIR provides two independent channels (A, B) of video. An electrical signal developed within the sight unit is separately processed on both of the channels. One channel is used to develop a video display for an operator for target acquisition and tracking. The other channel is used for missile tracking and clutter and countermeasure (CM) rejection. A tracking unit (40) processes the signal to determine missile location relative to the target; and, if corrections to the missile freight path are necessary, a missile control unit (56) transmits them to the missile over wires (W). If two or more objects (M, D1, D2) are located in the field of view, a module (88) of the tracking unit undertakes a 'segmentation' process to differentiate and characterize the objects to determine which object is the missile and which is not.

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Maryland Heights, MO, United States of America

Kent Luetkemeyer