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Sperry Corporation

Mauritz L Granberg

David Gordon Hanson

Robert L Rajala

William G Whipple

A Scanning Sonar Display System comprised of a TV monitor, a scanning mechanism with transducer, control logic with image memory and timing, a power source such as a 12 volt storage battery and a set of operator controls. The type of TV monitor used is well known and similar to those used by raster scan computer terminals. The scanning mechanism has a stepping motor with a 10 to 1 reduction cable drive system to rotate the transducer with home initializing contacts. The control logic includes two counters used as image memory address registers. The first, the refresh counter, is used for reading the image memory during refresh and for determining the horizontal and vertical sync for the TV monitor. The second, the entry counter, is used for writing sonar and depth data into the image memory and is also used for control of the stepping motor. Home initializing contacts are used to initialize this counter. The timing includes a timing ring which provides for continuous control of top delay, range, repetition rate, sonar burst width and transducer frequency. A unique feature of the timing ring is that it allows the scanning mechanism to scan at the maximum rate which is very important for this type of device. Range read out is given in a combination of numbers and dots so that the accuracy is equal to that of the resolution of the monitor.

Scanning sonar display system

A method and apparatus whereby an auxiliary yoke is used in conjunction with a CRT display to correctively deflect the electron beam to a true position within each pixel of a graphics figure, as the graphics figure is displayed on the CRT's screen. The apparatus thus increasing the display's resolution within each pixel so as to permit the smoothing of the displayed graphics figures. The improved resolution being achieved via a four bit binary position correction code, three bits of which are stored in the image memory at those memory addresses corresponding to the coordinates of the pixels that comprise the graphics figure, and one bit of which position correction code is stored at the immediately preceeding memory addresses. The entire position correction code in turn being decoded as the image memory is read and used to drive one or the other of the x and y coil pairs of the x-y auxiliary yoke.

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Minneapolis, MN, United States of America

Mauritz L Granberg