Thales

Sat (societe Anonyme De Telecommunications)

Thierry Midavaine

Guillaume Bloom

Ludovic Perruchot

Olivier Verdy

Yves Courcol

Paul Thibout

Vincent Ligeret

Catherine Antier

Olivier Garin

Xavier Normandin

Tugdual Perrot

Marc Thillot

Jérôme Achart

Baya Bennai

The present invention relates to a device for classifying a light source, comprising:

Device for classifying a light source

The present invention relates to an optical pulse detection device, the device comprising a sensor having a plurality of pixels, each pixel comprising:

Device for detecting optical pulses

An imaging module includes a single-pupil head component with hyper-hemispherical entrance field with refractive entrance surface, concave exit face, a refractive central zone and reflective peripheral zone. The imaging module also includes a secondary mirror, an aberrations corrector having an aspherical lens, a focusing objective, and an aperture diaphragm between the aberrations corrector and the objective. The head component is quasi-afocal in the vicinity of the field of 90&#xb0; angular radius, its entrance surface has a &#xbd; vertex angle of smaller than 30&#xb0;, the secondary mirror is aspherical with variable local focal length with a maximum local power for a zone used by a field of 90&#xb0; angular radius and minimum smaller by at least a factor of 2 for a zone used by a field of angular radius smaller than 20&#xb0;.

Optical imaging module having a hyper-hemispherical field and controlled distortion and compatible with an outside environment

The subject of the invention is a method for detecting and classifying events of a scene by means of a single-pupil imaging system equipped with a VisNIR detector in the 0.6 &#x3bc;m-1.1 &#x3bc;m band and with an SWIR detector, which comprises steps of acquiring synchronized VisNIR and SWIR successive 2D images, of displaying the VisNIR images, and of processing these images, which consists in: comparing the SWIR images so as to determine, for each pixel, the variation in illumination from one SWIR image to another and the peak value of these SWIR illuminations, if this variation in SWIR illumination is greater than a threshold, then an event associated with said pixel is detected and: its date, its temporal shape and its duration are determined, in the VisNIR images, the coordinates are determined of the corresponding pixel for which: the variation in the illumination from one VisNIR image to another and the peak value of these VisNIR illuminations are calculated, and these variations in SWIR and VisNIR illumination and their peak values are compared so as to estimate a temperature of the event, the distance of the corresponding point of the scene is estimated so as to calculate the intensity of the event on the basis of the SWIR and VisNIR illuminations and on the basis of this distance, the total energy of the event is estimated on the basis of its temporal shape and of its intensity, the event is classified as a function of its duration, its temperature, its intensity and its energy, the previous steps are repeated for another pixel of the SWIR images.

Method for detecting and classifying events of a scene that include firing threat type events

A method is provided for detecting a target not emitting in the wavelength region lying between 1 &#x3bc;m and 1.9 &#x3bc;m. The target is situated in a night sky luminous environment of level less than or equal to 4. Use is made of an imaging device of focal length f and of pupil diameter D, comprising at least one detector comprising types of pixels configured to operate in the wavelength region lying between 1 &#x3bc;m and 1.9 &#x3bc;m, the detectors exhibiting a noise level of less than 0.6&#xd7;10/(f/D), and from the image obtained by this device is extracted at least one negative-contrast zone, that is to say a black zone on a bright background corresponding to the presence of the target in the night sky of level less than or equal to 4.

Method of imaging a target in a night sky

A method of synchronizing optronic systems, of the type operating simultaneously on one and the same scene, each optronic system being intended to emit and/or receive light of a target of the scene and each optronic system having an internal precision clock and a module suitable for synchronizing the internal clock with a reference time signal, the method being characterized in that it has the following steps of receiving and generating a reference time signal by each synchronization module, the reference time signal being independent of the optronic systems and emanating from an item of equipment different from the optronic systems, and synchronizing the internal clock of each optronic system with the reference time signal by the synchronization module.

Method of synchronizing optronic systems and set of optronic systems synchronized according to this method

A video optronic system, comprises a sensor with a supra-hemispheric lens and a matrix detector array, a unit for processing the sensed images, display means for the processed images. The matrix detector, having video rate, comprises: i. L&#xd7;C pixels, with L and C&#x3e;2000, each employing correlated double sampling and able to ensure a charge-voltage conversion, and ii. 2 C parallelized analog-digital conversion elements, each comprising a first ADC with output having low level and large gain and a second ADC with output having high level and low gain; the lens exhibits a focal length controlled by the angle of elevation, the focal length being longest in the equatorial plane, and has a numerical aperture lying between 0.9 and 1.6; and the processing unit comprises: i. means for correcting the non-uniformities, ii. means of weighted summation, of several neighboring pixels, iii. means for adapting and compressing the sensed image.

Optronic system having supra-hemispheric vision

A device is divulged for generating an infrared image, in which an electron beam having a section substantially equal to the area of a pixel formed from a material having high emissive power in the infrared, directly bombards this material. The energy of the beam is transformed into heat then into infrared radiation, in the material. Each pixel is supported by a slab of a material transparent to the infrared, which is heat insulating and deposited on a screen transparent to the infrared and heat conducting.

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Paris, France

Thierry Midavaine