The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 13, 1996
Filed:
Jun. 08, 1994
Patrice Jano, Seine Port, FR;
Sylvie Rat, Paris, FR;
Thomson-CSF, Paris, FR;
Abstract
This optical device has, in the rear of the projectile, a retro-reflector fitted out with a polarizer and, at the projectile firing station, a light source whose beam illuminates the rear of the projectile, and a light flux analyzer deducing the roll angle of the projectile from the direction of polarization of the light flux reflected by this projectile, wherein the polarizer is a polarizer with refraction index discontinuity positioned on the rear of the projectile, before the retro-reflector, with an angle of inclination between the direction normal to its plane of index variation and the longitudinal axis of the projectile chosen to be greater than the Brewster angle, and wherein the light source is offset laterally with respect to firing axis of the projectile, these two measurements giving rise to a modulation of intensity of the reflected light beam as a function of the roll angle plus or minus 2.pi., giving, to two successive maximum values of the signal of the analyzer, different amplitudes that enable them to be differentiated and therefore make it possible to remove the ambiguity of .pi. resulting from the measurement of the direction of polarization. FIG. 1.