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AssigneeRaytheon Company
InventorsDavid R. Sar, Richard J. Wright, Delmar L. Barker
Estimating the term…
An aerodynamic nose cone capable of imaging through the nose cone is accomplished by forming the nose cone as an Afocal Axicon lens. Under a condition of RI≈cos(X)/cos(3X) where RI is an effective refractive index and X is a cone half angle of the solid right-circular cone. EMR incident on a front portion of the cone undergoes a total internal reflection (TIR) and exits a trailing surface of the cone with approximately the same parallelism with which it entered the cone. EMR incident behind the front portion of the cone that exits the trailing surface with different parallelism than it entered may be directed to a light dump or through a frustum of a cone to re-establish the correct parallelism. The entire optical system may be monolithically integrated into the nose cone to eliminate alignment issues and moving parts.
A nose cone comprising a solid right-circular cone that is transparent to electromagnetic radiation (EMR) of at least one wavelength, said solid right-circular cone configured with an effective refractive index (RI)≈cos(X)/cos(3X) where X is a cone half angle of the solid right-circular cone to form an Afocal Axicon lens in which EMR incident on a front portion of the solid right-circular cone exits a trailing surface of the solid right-circular cone with approximately the same parallelism with which the EMR entered the front portion of the solid right-circular cone.
A nose cone comprising a solid right-circular cone that is transparent to electromagnetic radiation (EMR) of at least one wavelength in either the UV, visible, IR or MMW bands, the solid right-circular cone having a tip, an exterior surface that extends aft from tip at a cone half angle X from an axis of symmetry between 10 and 26 degrees and a trailing surface, said solid right-circular cone having an effective refractive index (RI) between 1.14 to 4.32 where RI≈cos(X)/cos(3x) to form an Afocal Axicon lens where EMR having a parallelism entering a front portion of the solid right-circular cone within an acceptance cone having an acceptance half angle Y of less than 30 degrees from the axis of symmetry undergoes a total internal reflection (TIR) and exits the trailing surface with the same parallelism which the EMR entered the front portion of the solid right-circular cone.
A guided flight vehicle comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.