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:
Oct. 28, 2008
Filed:
Jun. 02, 2004
Hagos Teku, Tucson, AZ (US);
Thomas K. Lo, Oro Valley, AZ (US);
Nikki J. Lawrence, Tucson, AZ (US);
Raytheon Company, Waltham, MA (US);
Abstract
A generalized Hough transform is used to acquire and track vehicular targets for missile guidance. This is accomplished by recognizing that most vehicles have silhouettes that may be described as a 'rounded rectangle'. The position and shape of such rounded rectangles is described in terms of 5 parameters (x, y, a, b, θ) where x, yare the center coordinates, a,b are the major and minor axis and Θ is the orientation. The computation of a five dimensional Hough transform on an image including such a target will produce the five parameters that provide the 'best fit' rounded rectangle to the target. These parameters are then passed to a missile tracker. This capability can be used to improve track gate handoff from the automatic target recognizer (ATR) to the missile tracker, changing aspect ratios of maneuvering targets, limited lock-on after launch (LOAL), aimpoint designation and fire control system to missile seeker handover.