Airborne IR fire surveillance system providing firespot geopositioning

A system for detecting and locating forest or other fire spots, vehicles, and other IR emitting sources on a terrain, the system comprising:

• (a) a self-contained pod that is detachably attachable to an aircraft and does not need power from the aircraft, the pod having
• a means for establishing the position of the aircraft borne system within in a reference frame comprising a GPS, an altimeter, and means for determining the pod's attitude,
• a means for scanning terrain and receiving and measuring IR emitting source photons and determining the position of the IR emitting source relative to the aircraft borne system, comprising a rotating optics head containing a rotating and nutating mirror which scans the terrain and reflects the IR photons to a photon detector, an optical angle encoder which reads the rotation angle position of the mirror, and a nutation angle reader to determine a directional vector from the aircraft borne system to the IR source, and telemetry means;
• and
• (b) a ground station with telemetry means for communication with the telemetry means of the self-contained pod.

An aircraft borne system for detecting and locating forest or other fire spots, vehicles, and other IR emitting sources on a terrain, the system comprising:

• a means for establishing the position of the aircraft borne system within a reference frame;
• a means for scanning terrain and receiving and measuring IR emitting source photons and determining the position of the IR emitting source relative to the aircraft borne system by determining position vectors from the aircraft borne system to the IR emitting sources;
• and
• telemetry means for providing communication between the pod and a ground station;
• and
• a video camera and an IR camera which can be commanded from the ground station to pan and zoom via an onboard camera control unit
• wherein the means for establishing the position of the aircraft borne system within a reference frame, the means for scanning terrain and receiving and measuring IR emitting source photons and determining the position of the IR emitting source relative to the aircraft borne system, telemetry means, and video camera and IR camera are contained in a pod detectably carried by an aircraft.