Optical tracking system
US4072861A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 18, 1973 |
| Grant date | Feb 7, 1978 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 18, 1993 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG01S3/781
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
A light-emitting target within the field of view of an optical objective is focused within a generally rectangular detection area upon a continuously moving code carrier which is subdivided into a multiplicity of juxtaposed strip zones parallel to the direction of motion, each strip zone forming a pseudo-random binary optical code pattern recurring one or more times throughout its length. The motion of the code carrier generates a pulsed light beam which is intercepted by a photoelectric transducer unit and, after electric amplification, is reconverted by a photoemissive unit into a train of luminous pulsations projected onto the code carrier in a correlation area traversed at every instant by a code pattern identical with that of the detection area. The light gated by the matching code of the correlation area is focused upon the screeen of a camera tube which therefore receives a bright spot at a point whose location on the screen corresponds to that of the target image on the detection area. The transducer unit may comprise a set of linear detectors, aligned with respective strip zones, in which case the photoemissive unit has a like number of linear light emitters parallel to th…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.