Target projector automated alignment system

Abstract

An alignment system and method for maintaining the alignment of a target projector with another image projector in a simulator system. The target projector system includes a slewable fold mirror to move the target image in azimuth and elevation. A two position beam splitter is arranged so that in a projector operating mode, the beam splitter is positioned out of the target projector image light path, and in a projector maintenance mode, the beam splitter is positioned in the image light path. A photo-sensitive array is positioned relative to the beam splitter such that light from the display screen is redirected from the light path onto the array. During the maintenance mode, reference light points are generated on the display screen, and the target projector is precisely aligned by use of processing the images captured by the array to calculate an error signal representing the distance between the light point image and the center of the array. The error signal is used to command servo motors positioning the slewable fold mirror to precisely align the target projector to the light points. The servo commands resulting in the precise alignment for each reference point are stored in a lookup table in memory. These commands are used to obtain additional table values for interpolated points between the reference points. The table values are then used to adjust the servo motor commands positioning the slewable mirror during normal operation of the target projector.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.