Device for determining the direction of propagation of a plane wave

Claim 1

Apparatus for determining the direction of propagation of a plane wave by detecting said plane wave in a plurality of predetermined directions uniformly distributed in a plane, said apparatus comprising: a. a plurality of detectors uniformly distributed on a circle and disposed in groups of consecutive detectors differing from each other by one detector, each group corresponding to a predetermined direction, b. a plurality of coders each connected to a corresponding detector and quantizing the signals from that detector, c. a plurality of adders equal in number to an integral multiple of the number of groups of detectors, d. a plurality of shift registers equal in number to an integral multiple of one less than the number of groups of detectors, said adders and shift registers being alternately connected into one or more chains, each adder of each chain being connected to a number of said detectors through their corresponding coders and to the subsequent adder of the same chain by means of a shift register, the number of said detectors being equal to the ratio of the number of predetermined directions and the number of chains, e. timing means connected to each of said shift registers for controlling the progression of information along each chain, wherein each shift register introduces a delay equal to the duration of the propagation of a wave in a predetermined direction between a detector of the group correspond-ing to the predetermined direction and a detector of the same group which is the next to be reached by the wave.