System, method, and computer program product for indicating hostile fire
AssigneeLockheed Martin Corporation
InventorsStephen C. Moraites, Shawn McPhail, Donald Sobiski
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Systems, methods, and computer program products for identifying hostile fire. A characteristic of a fired projectile is detected using an optical system and the projectile's travel path in relation to a vehicle is determined. If the determined travel path of the projectile is within a predetermined distance from the vehicle, it is determined that the projectile is hostile towards the vehicle and a warning is output.
Claims17
A system that is operative during the day and at night to determine whether a position is an intended target of a fired unguided energetic projectile, the system comprising:
- an infrared (IR) camera mountable at the position, said IR camera having a field of view (FOV) and a predetermined sensitivity sufficient to capture a heat signature of the fired unguided energetic projectile, the heat signature including at least one of a firing component generated upon firing of the projectile and a friction component generated by friction as the projectile travels through the troposphere, pixels of said IR camera being operative to capture a portion of a trail of energy associated with the heat signature of the fired projectile;
- and
- an image processor operative to receive signals from said IR camera corresponding to the captured portion of the trail of energy, said image processor being operative to post-process in near real time the signals from said IR camera and to make a determination as to whether the position was the intended target of the fired projectile by analyzing calculated vertical and horizontal miss distances of the fired projectile, the vertical and horizontal miss distances being calculated based on a product of vertical and horizontal pixel trails, respectively, in the captured portion of the trail of energy as functions of time and projectile velocity.
10-17 (canceled)
A nontransitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon software instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
- analyze received electronic data regarding a sensed heat signature of an unguided projectile;
- and
- determining a miss distance of the unguided projectile based on the analyzed received electronic data, the miss distance being at least one of a vertical miss distance and a horizontal miss distance.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.