Apparatus for sensing transient phenomena in radiant energy images

Claim 2

A sensor system for locating transients in a radiant energy image, said sensor system comprising: first and second CCD imagers of a field transfer type arranged to respectively receive substantially identical first and second portions of said radiant energy image in spatial registration with each other; timing generator means supplying clocking signals to said first and second CCD imagers for causing them to sense at staggered times said first and second portions of said radiant energy image and to supply in synchronism responses to said first and second portions of said radiant energy image from successive pairs of their sensing times, the responses being supplied in synchronism according to a predetermined recurrent scan pattern relating timing to spatial location in the radiant energy image; means for differentially combining those responses; and means, responding to the amplitude of the differentially combined responses being too large to lie within the bounds of a range of amplitude values, for indicating the existence of a transient in the radiant energy image.

Claim 3

Apparatus for generating a differential with respect to time of the scanned response to a radiant energy image, said apparatus comprising: CCD imager means having first and second field store registers independent of each other with synchronized line-by-line clocking during their being simultaneously read out from, having first and second output registers with synchronized clocking for respectively performing parallel-to-serial conversion of a signal read from said first field store register and parallel-to-serial conversion of a signal read from said second field store register, and having image register means providing integrated responses to first and to second temporal portions of said radiant energy image in spatial registration with each other, but interleaved in time, for writing respectively into said first field store register and into said second field store register during succissive times; means responding to the difference of the converted signals from said first and second output registers for supplying an image differentiated with respect to time signal; and means for providing output indications responsive to said image differentiated with respect to time signal exceeding a prescribed threshold level.

Claim 4

Apparatus for generating a differential with respect to time of the scanned response to a radiant energy image, said apparatus comprising: CCD imager means having first and second field store registers independent of each other with synchronized line-by-line clocking during their being simultaneously read out from, having first and second output registers with synchronized clocking for respectively performing parallel-to-serial conversion of a signal read from said first field store register and parallel-to-serial conversion of a signal read from said second field store register, and having image register means providing integrated responses to first and to second temporal portions of said radiant energy image in spatial registration with each other, but interleaved in time, for writing respectively into said first field store register and into said second field store register during succissive times; means responding to the difference of the converted signals from said first and second output registers for supplying an image differentiated with respect to time signal; and means for providing output indications responsive to said image differentiated with respect to time signal exceeding a prescribed threshold level.

Claim 5

Apparatus as set forth in claim 2 including: means for optically dividing said radiant energy image into at least first and second portions; a first image register included in said image register means for integrating in packets charge generated by photoconversion therein of said first portion of said radiant energy image, said integration occuring during at least a portion of each time interval between successive intervals of clocking said first field store register for writing thereinto, said first image register being clocked in a proper direction for transferring its packets of integrated charge to said first field store register during the time said first image register is being written into; and a second image register included in said image register means for integrating in packets charge generated by photoconversion therein of said second portion of said radiant energy image, said integration occuring during at least a portion of each time interval between successive intervals of clocking said second field store register for writing thereinto, said second image register being clocked in a proper direction for transferring its packets of integrated charge to said second field store register during the time said second image register is being written into.

Claim 6

Apparatus as set forth in claim 3 with: means clocking said first image register to transfer charge packets out of said first image register by moving them in the opposite direction to said proper direction therein, for shortening the time for integrating charge in said first image register; and means clocking said second image register to transfer charge packets out of the second image register by moving them in the opposite direction to said proper direction therein, for shortening the time for integrating charge in said second image register in like amount as it is shortened in said first image register.

Claim 7

Apparatus as set forth in claim 4 wherein the times during which integrating occurs in said first and second image registers, respectively, are interleaved in time.

Claim 8

Apparatus as set forth in claim 3 wherein the times during which integrating occurs in said first and second image registers, respectively, are interleaved in time.