Wide field-of-view laser spot tracker

Claim 3

A system as set forth in claim 1 wherein the phase diffraction device causes the spots to be varied in radiation intensity inversely proportional to the distance a spot is from a given spot which represents the center of a line pointing directly to said radiation emissions; and said detectors being five in number with a center detector surrounded by four auxilliary detectors located radially about it in a 90° intervals.

Claim 4

A system as set forth in claim 2 wherein said center detector is a quadrant array; circuit devices connected to said center detector so as to first center a spot falling on said center detector and then comparing the intensity of that spot with the intensity of the spots falling on each of the auxilliary detectors; and said circuit causing a one predetermined distance movement of the spots toward any spot which is detected to have a greater intensity than the spot on said center detector.

Claim 5

In a radiation tracker which is to track radiation coming from a distant target the improvement being a method comprising the steps of focusing the radiation onto a focal plane such that it will appear as a plurality of radiation spots which are identically sized and spaced from each other in a square array; causing said spots to have an Airy distribution with radial symmetry with an intensity distribution of each spot being inversely proportional to its distance from a given spot which represents the pointing direction to the radiation on the target; locating a radiation detector device in the focal plane; detecting the intensity of a spot centered on said detectors and comparing this intensity with spots above and below; moving said tracker so that the spot with the greater intensity will be centered on the detector if either the spot above or the spot below has a greater intensity than the spot located on the detector; comparing the intensity of the spot centered on the detector with spots located to the left and to the right; moving the tracker so as to locate the higher intensity spot onto the detector if either the left or the right spot is of a greater intensity; and repeating the last two steps until the given spot of the greatest intensity is located on said detector.

Claim 6

In a radiation tracker which is to track radiation coming from a distant target the improvement being a method comprising the steps of focusing the radiation onto a focal plane such that it will appear as a plurality of radiation spots which are identically sized and spaced from each other in a square array; causing said spots to have an Airy distribution with radial symmetry with an intensity distribution of each spot being inversely proportional to its distance from a given spot which represents the pointing direction to the radiation on the target; locating a radiation detector device in the focal plane; detecting the intensity of a spot centered on said detectors and comparing this intensity with spots above and below; moving said tracker so that the spot with the greater intensity will be centered on the detector if either the spot above or the spot below has a greater intensity than the spot located on the detector; comparing the intensity of the spot centered on the detector with spots located to the left and to the right; moving the tracker so as to locate the higher intensity spot onto the detector if either the left or the right spot is of a greater intensity; and repeating the last two steps until the given spot of the greatest intensity is located on said detector.

Claim 7

A method as set forth in claim 4 further comprising step of centering the center spot about the detector before determining the relative intensities of the spots.

Claim 8

A method as set forth in claim 5 further comprising the step of utilizing a center quadrant array detector surrounded by 4 auxilliary detectors located in pairs up and below and to the left and to the right of the quadrant array detector; spacing said auxiliary and quadrant array detectors equal to the spacing between spots; and utilizing the quadrant array detector to align the center spot.

Claim 9

A method as set forth in claim 6 further comprising the steps of causing the width of the spots to be greater than the spacing between the detectors.