Bae Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration Inc.

Patrick D Fitzgerald

David Paul Kelly

Brant M Kaylor

Zachary C Long

A method of determining a schedule for a pointing device includes distributing targets among a plurality of groups and assigning schedules to the groups, after which the groups and group schedules are not modified. A partial pointing schedule is successively grown by selecting a list of remaining groups, and appending a best candidate sub-schedule for the list to the partial schedule. If a sub-schedule cannot be found for which the grown partial schedule meets all applicable requirements, the partial schedule is pruned to a previous state and a different, previously evaluated sub-schedule is appended to the pruned partial schedule to attempt re-growth. Groups, group schedules, lists, and sub-schedules can be selected according to values, dwell times, and/or windows of performance of the targets, groups, and sub-schedules. If no schedule is found that meets all requirements, a missed group can be excluded from the schedule.

Pointing scheduler for a pointable device

The disclosed method enables efficient registration and correction of random vertical and horizontal offsets of a plurality of images of a feature to enable combination thereof with maximum noise suppression. The method includes obtaining image cross correlations and estimating correlation peaks. If a correlation peak cannot be uniquely determined for a given correlation, all candidates are retained. An improved robust weighted regression is applied thereto to obtain estimates of the image shifts. Dimensional symmetry is exploited to remove redundancy from the weighted normal equation, and computational requirements are further reduced by analytically determining the coefficients matrix and the inhomogeneous matrix, thereby circumventing conventional computations. Solution of the resulting consistent, full rank, linear system requires only matrix inversion. For N images, the present method thereby increases computation speed and reduces storage by approximately N.

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Mont Vernon, NH, United States of America

Patrick D Fitzgerald