Directed energy (DE) weapon and passive millimeter wave (PmmW) imager for target tracking

A directed energy (DE) weapon and tracking system, comprising:

• a gimbal configured to slew and point an axis at a target;
• a telescope on the gimbal, said telescope including at least first aperture, an electronic aperture and an optical aperture;
• a DE weapon including a source of electromagnetic energy for generating and transmitting a directed energy beam through the first aperture to prosecute at least a portion of the target in an active prosecution mode;
• and
• a passive millimeter wave (PmmW) imaging receiver comprising,
• a phased-array antenna including a plurality of antenna elements mounted within the telescope and arranged in a first pattern configured to receive mmW signals through the second electronic aperture of a mmW scene within a field of view of the PmmW imaging receiver;
• a plurality of electro-optic modulators corresponding to the plurality of antenna elements, each modulator configured to modulate an optical carrier with a received mmW signal to generate a plurality of modulated optical signals;
• a plurality of optical channels configured to carry the plurality of modulated optical signals, each of the plurality of optical channels having an output to emanate the corresponding modulated optical signal out of the corresponding optical channel, the outputs of the plurality of optical channels arranged in a second pattern corresponding to the first pattern;
• and
• a first composite signal channel, adjacent to the plurality of outputs of the plurality of optical channels, configured to receive the plurality of modulated optical signals to form a first composite optical signal;
• a first optical detector array configured to receive at least a portion of the first composite optical signal and to extract a first optical image of the mmW scene including at least the portion of the target within the directed energy beam;
• and
• an optical imaging receiver comprising,
• an optical telescope configured to receive optical signals through the optical aperture of an optical scene within a field of view of the optical imaging receiver to form a second composite optical signal, and
• a second detector array configured to receive the second composite optical signal and to extract a second optical image of the optical scene including the target,
• a processing circuit configured to process the first and second optical images to provide real-time assessment of target tracking based on the received mmW signals of the mmW scene during the active prosecution mode and the received optical signals of the optical scene, wherein a resolution of the portion of the target in the mmW scene is coarser than a resolution of the portion of the target in the optical scene;
• an optical beam combiner configured to combine the first composite optical signal from the PmmW imaging receiver and ft the second composite optical signal from the optical imaging receiver in a common signal channel;
• detector optics in the common signal channel;
• and
• an image separation circuit to separate and direct the first and second composite optical signals to the first and second optical detector arrays.