Method and system for determining the pointing direction of a body in flight
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
InventorsDavid J. Hepner, Thomas E. Harkins
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Abstract
A method to determine the direction in which a spinning projectile is traveling. A solar sensor array on the projectile is used to calculate the orientation of the axis of rotation of the projectile with respect to a known solar field and a magnetometer sensor array is used to calculate the orientation of the axis of rotation of the projectile with respect to a known magnetic field, both fields being represented by respective vectors having magnitude and direction. With the known and calculated orientations, the pointing direction may be obtained by vector combination.
Claims10
A method of determining the pointing direction of a body in flight and spinning about an axis of rotation, comprising the steps of:
- providing a first sensor array in said body to obtain a first value indicative of the orientation of said axis of rotation with respect to a first field, represented by a vector having magnitude and direction;
- providing a second sensor array in said body to obtain a second value indicative of the orientation of said axis of rotation with respect to a second field, represented by a vector having magnitude and direction;
- obtaining an indication of the direction of said first field;
- obtaining an indication of the direction of said second field;
- determining said pointing direction by vectorily combining said first and second values of orientation and said first and second indications of the direction of said fields.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.