Elliott Brothers (london) Limited

Ferranti Plc

British Aerospace Plc

Smiths Industries Plc

Gec Avionics Limited

William J Clark

Alan Elmer Sarson

Harry M Jones

John J Ward

William E Hobbs

John H Powell

A data processing arrangement is operative to combine data representing different kinds of information from disparate sources. The data is stored under assigned addresses having a mutually compatible co-ordinate format, and is processed using those addresses. Relevant portions of data from a very large amount of information can be readily extracted in this way, and combined with other data which is related by virtue of a common address. The arrangement is applicable to flight management of an aircraft.

Data processing arrangements

The invention provides an image motion compensation arrangement for enabling stabilization of the line of sight of a scanned imaging system mounted on a vehicle. In one example the scanned imaging system is a television camera assembly which is resiliently mounted and carries a plane mirror on to which is directed, via an auto-collimating lens, light from a light emitting diode. Light reflected by the plane mirror passes back through the auto-collimating lens to be received by a detector having quadrant receiving surfaces which resolve the complex motion of the camera assembly during movement of the vehicle into two orthogonal components defining the angular error caused by the motion in the sight line of the camera. The two orthogonal components are utilized to provide a pair of electrical signals utilizable to correct for the image motion resulting from the rotation of the sight line.

Image motion compensation system

A field sequential television camera is provided in which a disc having a plurality of differently colored segmental filters is rotated in front of an image isocon camera tube. Normally six segmental filters are provided presenting sequentially, red, green and blue in order. The image section of the camera tube is arranged to be gated so that an electron image reaches the target only during a fraction of each sequential color field sufficient to permit operation of the target above the knee of its transfer characteristic.

Field sequential color television camera arrangements

The invention provides a surveillance arrangement, and in particular an airborne surveillance arrangement, in which a television display of a scene is brightened up, by means of infra-red detectors, to emphasize heat emitting targets. In one example of airborne surveillance system, a linear array of infra-red detectors is arranged to view part of a scene viewed by a television camera, with the same horizontal field of view at a desired target range. In front of the array of detectors a light chopper is provided so that the output of each detector is a modulated carrier. The output of each detector is applied to a store, via individual impedance transformers, narrow bandpass filters and demodulators. Between each demodulator and the store, individual sharp out-off low pass filters and threshold detectors may be provided to provide a degree of discrimination against spurious responses. The store is read-out under the control of a sequence timing unit which is synchronized with the synchronizing signal generator of the television camera and the video output of the latter is mixed with the output from the store prior to application to a display unit so that the display provided is a scene of an area towards which the aircraft is flying with heat emitting targets highlighted.

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Great Baddow, United Kingdom

William J Clark