Cooperative automatic tracking
AssigneeH4 Engineering, Inc.
InventorsChristopher T. Boyle, Scott K. Taylor, Alexander G. Sammons, Gordon Jason Glover
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Abstract
A system and method are provided for automatic cooperative object tracking using gain comparison of antenna pairs facing different directions. In cooperative object tracking, the object is associated with a radiation source, or beacon, that emits radiation that is detected by the tracking system. The present invention makes use of antennas that are not highly oriented antennas but are characterized by having a steep drop in their gain profiles at a particular angle of incidence of the radiation that they detect.
Claims15
A system for automated cooperative tracking of an object, said system comprising:
- a pointer associated with a pan-tilt mechanism, wherein said pan-tilt mechanism has panning and tilting parts capable of turning around a panning axis and around a tilting axis, respectively, and said pointer has a pointing direction with respect to said panning and tilting parts;
- a first antenna pair associated with said pan-tilt mechanism, said first antenna pair comprising a first wide angle antenna and a second wide angle antenna, wherein said first and second wide angle antennas are fixed with respect to said pointer and point in substantially different directions within a plane perpendicular to the panning axis;
- a beacon, associated with the object, that emits an identifiable signal detectable by said first and second wide angle antennas;
- and
- a microcontroller that compares the gains of said first and second wide angle antennas and causes said pan-tilt mechanism to pan said pointer in the direction of the wide angle antenna with the higher gain.
A method of automated cooperative tracking of an object, said method comprising the steps of:
- emitting an identifiable signal from the location of the object to be tracked;
- providing a tracking mechanism having at least a panning axis equipped with at least a first wide angle antenna and a second wide angle antenna mounted on the tracking mechanism within a plane perpendicular to the panning axis such that the first and second wide angle antennas point in substantially different directions and constitute a first set of paired antennas;
- detecting signals emitted from the object to be tracked using the wide angle antennas, wherein the detected signal on each of the first and second wide angle antennas characterized by an intensity;
- turning the tracking mechanism such that both wide angle antennas detect signals with non-zero intensity;
- comparing the signal intensities detected by the first and second wide angle antennas and turning the tracking mechanism in the direction of the first wide angle antenna if it is detecting higher signal intensity than the second wide angle antenna and turning the tracking mechanism in the direction of the second wide angle antenna if it is detecting higher signal intensity than the first wide angle antenna;
- stopping the tracking mechanism if the signal intensities detected by the first wide angle antenna and by the second wide angle antenna are substantially the same and not zero.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.