System for processing reflected energy signals

Abstract

An energy pulse capture system senses, receives, and processes signals reflected from a target. In an illustrative embodiment, light pulses are reflected off of a target, received by optical equipment, converted into analog electrical signals, and then processed to obtain information therefrom. The invention basically identifies targets by measuring the time delay between a transmitted signal and a received or 'return' signal. The invention includes a windowing system to more efficiently process digitized electrical signals representing the return signals. The windowing system effectively defines a 'window' in memory within which the return signal is stored, and 'locks' on to this window to reduce time spent searching for the return pulses among other data. In another aspect of the invention, a real time return system is used to more efficiently process the electrical signals representing the return pulses. The real time return system detects the maximum amplitude of the received signal in real time, and stores the current value of a counter used to clock data into memory, thereby facilitating later use of the stored counter value to locate signals representative of the return signal in the memory. The invention also concerns a timing delay system, which conserves memory of the invention by delaying storage of data until a return pulse is actually received.