General Electric Company

Lockheed Martin Corporation

Syracuse University

William Arthur Penn

Joseph Lawrence Chovan

Lawrence Richard Snowman

William Pattee Whyland

Martin Francis Lowry

Evelyn Hope Monsay

Jerome Johnson Tiemann

William E Engeler

Donald Winfield

Frank R Dickey, Jr

Walter Beeman

Frederick Phelps

James W Stauffer

Donald W Winfield

The present invention provides a laser heterodyne interferometer based system for audibly producing sounds recorded on a cylinder recording, such as an Edison type wax cylinder, or a 33, 45 or 78 RPM LP (long play) record. The system generally comprises an optical system mounted on an optical platform, and an audio recording medium mounted on a platform operatively positioned relative to the optics platform. The optical system comprises an interferometer type structure that uses laser generated light propagated either through free space or through fiber, a platform on which the optical system is mounted, and a platform on which the recording media (e.g., cylinder or record) is mounted.

Frictionless, non-destructive playback system for cylinder recordings

A method for sensing acoustic energy as the energy passes from a more dense to a less dense medium while compensating for energy level loses that may have occurred along the acoustic path of the acoustic energy. The method may be used to replace a multi-sensor system for detecting acoustic energy. The method includes permitting the acoustic energy to progress from a first transmitting medium to a second transmitting medium, the first transmitting medium being more dense than the second transmitting medium and the first medium being contiguous with the second medium along a predetermined interface; disposing an optical sensor in the second medium so that at least a portion of the acoustic energy imposes a modulation proportional to the frequency components of the acoustic energy on a sampling light emitted by the optical sensor; and detecting at least a portion of the sampling light having modulation in response to the portion of the acoustic energy.

Method for sensing acoustic energy

The present invention relates to an optical sensor of air borne acoustic waves. The sensor comprises means for producing mutually coherent optical sampling and reference beams, which may be combined to form an intermediate frequency carrier, the sampling beam being exposed to the acoustic field, in which acoustic wave induced density variations occur. These density variations produce a variation in the index of refraction and thereupon a phase modulation of the sampling beam. This phase modulation may be recovered by an optical detector and a phase detector as an electrical signal representative of the acoustic signal. The invention has application to security systems.

Sensor for optically sensing air borne acoustic waves

A wide-aperture array, used to sonically measure range to a source, is calibrated by providing a beam of optical energy from a first location, rigidly affixed to a first end sensor of a trio of array sensors, through a lens at a second location rigidly affixed to a middle one of the trio of sensors, to an optical sensor of the retinal type at a third location, rigidly affixed to the remaining sensor, at the opposite end of an initially straight line from the first sensor, and then measuring the deviation of the beam at the retinal sensor due to deviation of the sensors from positions on a straight line. The wavefront curvature found for any energy received by the array sensors is corrected by the measured deviation.

Optical calibration of wide aperture array

An energy beam-forming array of N+2 stations which utilizes a companion network of N optical sensors which mutually image each other to determine deviations of the optical sensors, and therefore the energy-receptive sensors, from a common linear axis. Each optical sensor measures the equivalent of a second-difference, which are then combined to reconstruct the actual array deviations. Each optical sensor is equipped with at least one pinpoint light source, to provide a light beam to an imaging subsystem provided at the next sensor station. The imaging subsystem includes a lens, either simple or compound, coupled to a retinal sensor array. The location of the light source image at the retinal array provides all of the necessary information for reconstruction of the array sensor location.

Optical calibration of towed sensor array

The invention relates to holography and more particularly to an electronic holographic apparatus whose electrical output represents the magnitude and phase of coherent light reflected from a three-dimensional object and distributed over the aperture of the apparatus. The apparatus provides a coherent beam which illuminates the object to create a speckle pattern in an aperture bounding an optical sensing arrangement. A reference beam derived from the same source as the illuminating beam illuminates the sensing aperture directly and creates fringes in the speckle pattern. The optical sensing arrangement consists of a charge injection device (CID) camera with plural optical detectors arranged in relation to the speckle pattern to sense the magnitude and spatial phase of each speckle (on the average). The sampled outputs of the CID detectors are processed to isolate the magnitude and phase information representing the complex optical wavefront of the hologram from irrelevent terms created by the interference process. The detected information may be used for such purposes as imaging, interferometry, matched filtering or correlation.

Electronic holographic apparatus

The present invention relates to an adaptive signal processor for reducing interference in ranging and communication systems resulting from jamming or multipath reception. More particularly, an optical signal processor is provided in which a first time correlation is performed between the receive signal derived from a direction antenna and an interference signal derived from one or more auxiliary omnidirectional antennas in an acousto-optical device to obtain one or more corresponding weighting functions stored as a function of signal delay. The auxiliary signal is then correlated in a spatial correlation process in which the auxiliary signals are delayed and multiplied with the weights and the result spatially integrated to derive the predicted interference. The predicted interference is then subtracted from the main signal in an adaptive feedback loop wherein the predicted signal is made to approach equality with the interference. The system achieves good cancellation by correcting for multiple arrival times and by retaining the phase and amplitude information of the original carriers throughout the optical process.

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Baldwinsville, NY, United States of America

William Arthur Penn