Rafael-armament Development Authority Ltd.

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.

Zvi Yavin

Israel Greenfeld

Bernd Uhl

Eliezer Rosenblum

Gabriel Katlan

The invention relates to an airborne reconnaissance system which comprises: (a) optical unit for acquiring light rays from a terrain portion, said optical unit comprises a plurality of optical components that are positioned along an optical path and designed to maneuver said light rays to produce at a focal plane an acquired image of a terrain portion, said acquired image having an area S which is several times larger than the area A of a focal plane array which is positioned at same focal plane; (b) gimbals unit for performing a continuous back and forth across-track scanning movement of a respective line of sight formed between said optical unit and the terrain below the aircraft; (c) a first back-scanning mirror along said optical path, for compensating for said continuous across track movement of the line of sight, said compensation is performed during a respective integration period for a section of said acquired image of area S which falls during said period on said focal plane array; and (d) a second, along-track mirror also positioned along said optical path, which alternates between plurality of along track states, each state causes a different diversion of the light rays within said optical path thereby to impinge on said focal plane array another along-track section of said acquired image of area S; and (e) capturing means for recording in each state of said along-track mirror the corresponding section of the terrain image which is impinged during said state on the focal plane array.

Method and system for increasing the size of the area scanned by an airborne electro-optic reconnaissance system in a given time

An airborne reconnaissance system which comprises: (a) A focal plane array positioned at a focal plane of an optical unit, said focal plane array having an area A, and comprises a plurality of optical pixels sensitive to light; (b) Optical unit for acquiring light rays from a terrain portion, said optical unit comprises a plurality of optical components that are positioned along an optical path, and designed to maneuver said light rays to produce at the focal plane an image of said terrain portion, said image having an area which is several times larger than the focal plane array area A; (c) At least one light diversion optical component along said optical path which, for each acquired terrain portion image, switches between several n states, thereby causing in each state different diversion of said light rays within said path, thereby to impinge in each state another fraction of the terrain image on said focal plane array; and (d) Capturing means for recording in each state of the at least one light diversion optical component the portion of the terrain image which is impinged on the focal plane array.

Method for reducing the number of scanning steps in an airborne reconnaissance system, and a reconnaissance system operating according to said method

An airborne reconnaissance system comprising: (1) Gimbals having at least two degrees of freedom; (2) At least one array of light sensors positioned on the gimbals, for being directed by the same within at least two degrees of freedom; (3) Map storage means for storing at least one Digital Elevation Map of an area of interest, divided into portions; (4) Inertial Navigation System for real-time providing to a gimbals control unit navigation and orientation data of the aircraft with respect to a predefined global axes system; (5) Portion selection unit for selecting, one at a time, another area portion from the area of interest; and (6) servo means for directing the gimbals. The system uses data from the inertial navigation system and from the digital elevation map for real-time calculating direction to selected area portions, and for maintaining the direction during integration of light from the terrain, and for producing corresponding images of area portions.

Airborne reconnaissance system

The present invention relates to an airborne reconnaissance system for capturing images in a wide field of regard which comprises: (a) An array of a plurality of n prisms being one next to the other, each prism having an essentially flat and rectangular front surface, and at least an output surface wherein: (a1) a front surface of each of the plurality of prism is being directed toward a different section of a strip of terrain transversal to the flight direction of the aircraft, thereby collecting light rays coming mostly from that terrain strip section; (a2) each output surface of each of the prisms directs light rays which are received through said front prism surface toward a front lens of an optical unit; (b) A focal plane array; (c) Optical unit comprising a front lens, the front lens receiving light separately but simultaneously through the output surfaces of all the prisms, said optical unit comprises addition optics for directing the light received from said lens thereby to produce separate corresponding prism images on said focal plane array; (d) Control unit for periodically capturing all the images that are produced on the focal plane array at each instant, and transferring them into an electronic storage; and (e) Processing and combining unit for processing and combining all the separate stored prism images into a full image of the terrain relating to said wide field of regard.

A airborne reconnaissance system comprising: (1) Gimbals having at least two degrees of freedom; (2) At least one array of light sensors positioned on the gimbals, for being directed by the same within at least two degrees of freedom; (3) Map storage means for storing at least one Digital Elevation Map of an area of interest, divided into portions; (4) Inertial Navigation System for real-time providing to a gimbals control unit navigation and orientation data of the aircraft with respect to a predefined global axes system; (5) Portion selection unit for selecting, one at a time, another area portion from the area of interest; and (6) servo means for directing the gimbals. The system uses data from the inertial navigational system and from the digital elevation map for real-time calculating direction to selected area portions, and for maintaining the direction during integration of light from the terrain, and for producing corresponding images of area portions.

An airborne reconnaissance system comprising: () Gimbals having at least two degrees of freedom; () At least one array of light sensors positioned on the gimbals, for being directed by the same within at least two degrees of freedom; () Map storage means for storing at least one Digital Elevation Map of an area of interest, divided into portions; () Inertial Navigation System for real-time providing to a gimbals control unit navigation and orientation data of the aircraft with respect to a predefined global axes system; () Portion selection unit for selecting, one at a time, another area portion from the area of interest; and () servo means for directing the gimbals. The system uses data from the inertial navigation system and from the digital elevation map for real-time calculating direction to selected area portions, and for maintaining the direction during integration of light from the terrain, and for producing corresponding images of area portions.

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Gilon-Misgav, Israel

Zvi Yavin