A NOVEL TRACKING MEANS FOR DISTANT BALLISTIC MISSILE TARGETS

摘要

A laser tracking system steers a beam of laser energywhich is dithered in two directions to scan the surface of amoving object. A laser energy detector detects laser energyreflected from the target. Reflected energy is filtered todistinguish dither frequencies for signals in bothdirections, which signals are independently analyzed todetermine the location of the target in relation to the laserbeam. A bias signal is generated which causes the beam oflaser energy to be steered toward a surface radius to besteered toward a surface with the largest compound curvaturewithin the trackers' field-of-regard, to the target, to thetracked location on-target, or modified signals steer aportion of the beam to an optimum track location on targetwhile offsetting most of the beam's energy to a secondengagement location on target. Also, a track testing systemis capable of monitoring a laser beam focused on a missileand determining the effective laser engagement on a spinningtarget.