US 2004/0165892 A1Published application

Scanned acquisition using pre-track data

AssigneeNorthrop Grumman Systems Corporation

InventorTodd L. Mendenhall

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Abstract

A scan acquisition technique for acquiring terminals (62, 64) that does not rely on precise alignment between a sensor (66, 70) and a transmitter (68, 72) associated with the terminals (62, 64). The terminals (62, 64) separate uncertainty regions (76, 78) into a plurality of sections (88, 90). Scan beams (82, 84) include encoded information of what section (88, 90) the scan beam (82, 84) is currently scanning. Each terminal (62, 64) will eventually receive the scan beam (82, 84) of the other terminal (62, 64). When it does, it will encode its scan beam (82, 84) with both the outgoing code and the return code for that section (88, 90), so that when it's scan beam (82, 84) is received by the other terminal (62, 64), that terminal (62, 64) will know what scan section (88, 90) the other terminal (62, 64) is located.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A method of acquiring alignment between a first terminal and second terminal, said method comprising:

identifying a first uncertainty region that the first terminal is positioned within;
identifying a second uncertainty region that the second terminal is positioned within;
separating the first uncertainty region and the second uncertainty region into a plurality of contiguous scan sections where each scan section is identified by a section code;
transmitting a first scan beam from the first terminal that sequentially scans through the scan sections in the second uncertainty region, said first scan beam being encoded with both an outgoing section code for the particular scan section in the second uncertainty region that the first scan beam is scanning and a return section code that identifies the section decoded from the second scan beam if the first terminal was hit;
transmitting a second scan beam from the second terminal that sequentially scans through the scan sections in the first uncertainty region, said second scan beam being encoded with both an outgoing section code for the particular scan section in the first uncertainty region that the second scan beam is scanning and a return section code that identifies the section decoded from the first scan beam if the second terminal was hit;
receiving the first scan beam by the second terminal when the first scan beam illuminates the section of the second uncertainty region that the second terminal is located;
encoding the second scan beam with the section code from the first scan beam received by the second terminal;
and
receiving the second scan beam by the first terminal when the second scan beam scans the section of the first uncertainty region that the first terminal is located where the second scan beam includes the section code for the second terminal so that the first terminal knows the location of the second terminal in the second uncertainty region.

6 more elements

A communications system comprising:

a first terminal including a first sensor and a first transmitter, said first terminal being positioned within a first uncertainty region, said first uncertainty region being separated into a plurality of contiguous scan sections where each scan section in the first uncertainty region is identified by a scan code;
and
a second terminal including a second sensor and a second transmitter, said second terminal being positioned within a second uncertainty region, said second uncertainty region being separated into a plurality of contiguous scan sections where each scan section in the second uncertainty region is identified by a scan code, said first transmitter transmitting a first scan beam for scanning the second uncertainty region and being encoded with the scan code of the scan section in the second uncertainty region it is currently scanning and said second transmitter transmitting a second scan beam for scanning the first uncertainty region and being encoded with the scan code of the scan section it is currently scanning, said first scan beam also being encoded with the scan code from the second scan beam when the first sensor receives the second scan beam and said second scan beam also being encoded with the scan code from the first scan beam when the second sensor receives the first scan beam so that the first terminal knows the location of the second terminal in the second uncertainty region and the second terminal knows the location of the first terminal in the first uncertainty region.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.