USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

William S Wight

Donald G Quist

Carl M Zorzi

Brian J Wolfe

Steve J Koerner

Wayne Reinke

Eric Frisbee

David Reed Robinson

Joseph R Hansen

Donald Christison

Randy Coleman

The present invention provides an unmanned fully autonomous threat representative mobile land target for testing modern weapon systems and training personnel. The invention implements novel navigation and vehicle control algorithms which allow any predefined course to be represented spatially and temporally with continuously and smoothly varying curvatures having no discontinuities of curvature, direction, or acceleration that enable the target vehicle to traverse a predefined course with unprecedented speed, accuracy, and maneuverability without the need for communication with any remotely located station. It is emphasized that this abstract is provided to comply with the rules requiring an abstract that will allow a searcher or other reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope of the claims.

System and method for controlling a vehicle traveling along a path

A ball joint gimbal system which provides for a precise line-of-sight stabilization of a gimballed mirror that rides on a ball and its associated support structure. The mirror is positioned by four braided lines. The brained lines are driven by four servo motor with each servo motor being coupled to one of four capstan shafts. Each of the braided lines is wound around one of the four capstan shafts. The braided lines are positioned by optical shaft encoders. The low inertia of the gimballed mirror and the positioning of the mirror by the braided lines result in an extremely accurate and fast scanning optical pointing system. Inertial gimbal stabilization of the line of sight to a target is by a stabilization algorithm utilizing body rate information from body sensors which are components of the missile for providing autopilot and navigation functions for the missile.

Ball joint gimbal system

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Ridgecrest, CA, United States of America

William S Wight