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:
Jun. 21, 2016
Filed:
May. 01, 2014
Raytheon Company, Waltham, MA (US);
Darin S. Williams, Tucson, AZ (US);
Raytheon Company, Waltham, MA (US);
Abstract
A ball joint gimbal imaging system includes on-gimbal optics that reimage a front optical aperture to a smaller back optical aperture that moves with the rotation of the inner ball. Relay optics are configured to relay the back optical aperture to an electro-optic component mounted on the platform, off-gimbal. Relay optics includes a first two-axis steering element (on or off-gimbal) that is positioned and sized to cover the range of motion of the beam from the back optical aperture across the range of gimbal motion. The first two-axis steering element is controlled to steer the optical beam passing through the back optical aperture into a second off-gimbal two-axis steering element that is controlled to tilt the optical beam to align light along the central axis of the electro-optic element with the central axis of the front optical aperture on the inner ball, which is coincident with the gimbal pointing axis.