360 Degree optical surveillance system

Abstract

A 360 degree surveillance system for detecting an infrared IR signal coming rom a scene. The IR signal is reflected by the scanning mirror to an imaging lens. The scanning mirror rotates 360 degrees around a vertical axis. The imaging lens images the IR signal through a derotator onto a linear array of IR detectors. The derotator serves to keep the image of the IR scene in a proper orientation. The detectors sense the IR signal and produce a current proportional to its strength. Each detector is the beginning of a channel of information. Each channel has operational amplifiers to process the signal, control gain, restore dc, etc. The output of the amplifiers are fed to a linear array of LED's. The light output of the LED's passes through a rotator and is imaged by a projector lens, after reflection off a rotating mirror, onto a cylindrical screen. The purpose of the rotator is to keep the image of the LED's in the proper orientation on the screen. The purpose of the rotating projector mirror is to synchronously reflect the light from the LED's onto the screen so that there exists a constant relationship between the image produced on the screen to that seen by the detectors through the scanning mirror.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.