Vehicle gun control having deck avoidance feature
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
InventorDonald Francis Brennan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Control circuitry for a gun mounted in a vehicle turret that is non-symmecal relative to the vehicle front and rear ends. The gun can slew across the front and side areas of the vehicle at a minimum elevation of -20.degree., but due to the turret-vehicle orientation the gun is restricted to a minimum elevation of -7.degree. while slewing across the vehicle rear end. Should the gun be slewing toward the rear end of the vehicle while tracking a target at a level below the -7.degree. elevation, then in that event anticipating circuitry in the control system will automatically raise the gun to a safe elevation while the gun is passing over the vehicle rear end. The vehicle rear end is hereafter referred to as an avoidance zone.
Claims3
In a military vehicle having a turret rotatable in the azimuth plane and a gun movable in elevational planes, the vehicle providing a localized avoidance zone (14) that obstructs azimuth movement of the gun-turret system when the gun is in its lowest elevational setting:
- the combination comprising electric circuit means (22,34) responsive to approach movement of the gun toward the avoidance zone for issuing an electric pop-up command signal;
- azimuth velocity sensor means (28) electrically interconnected with said circuit means (22,34) for timewise advancing the pop-up command signal directly in accordance with azimuth velocity;
- potentiometer means (38) for generating gun-elevating signal when the gun is at or near its minimum elevation setting;
- elevation velocity sensor means (46) interconnected with said potentiometer means (38) to increase the gun-elevating signal inversely according to sensed elevation velocity;
- and contacts (35,36) controlled by the pop-up command signal for shunting the signal voltage around resistive sections of the potentiometer, whereby a gun-elevating signal is generated to force the gun upwardly as it approaches the avoidance zone.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.