Apparatus and a method for pulse detection and characterization

A matched detection matrix pulse detector, comprising:

• a collimated beam of light;
• a Bragg cell illuminated by the collimated beam of light, the Bragg cell driven by an input signal containing pulses of various modulations, the cell spatially modulating the collimated beam of light;
• an opaque plate comprising a plurality of apertures each of a selected length;
• a binary optical plate positioned in the modulated collimated beam of light to replicate the image of the Bragg cell aperture a plurality of times in the plane of the opaque plate;
• an optical lens assembly in the path of the spatially modulated beam of light from the opaque plate, the optical lens assembly generating a spatial Fourier transform of the light distribution thereby resulting in the intensity of light in the focal plane of the optical lens assembly proportional to the power spectral density;
• a detector array in the focal plane of the optical lens assembly responsive to the light intensity received by the detector array and generating output signals;
• and
• a focal plane processor receiving the detector array output signals to generate for selected pulses of the input signal, the time of occurrence, frequency interval and duration of selected pulses.

A matched detection matrix pulse detector, comprising:

• a collimated beam of light;
• a Bragg cell illuminated by the collimated beam of light, the Bragg cell driven by an input signal comprising pulses of a plurality of modulations, the cell spatially modulating the collimated beam of light in response to the input signal;
• an opaque plate comprising a plurality of apertures each having a selected length;
• a first optical lens assembly positioned in the path of the spatially modulated collimated beam of light to image the beam of light to the plane of the opaque plate;
• a binary optical plate positioned in the path of the imaged beam of light to replicate the image of the Bragg cell aperture a plurality of times in the plane of the opaque plate;
• a second optical lens assembly in the path of the spatially modulated beam of light from the opaque plate, the second optical lens assembly generating a spatial Fourier transform of the light distribution thereby resulting in intensity of light in the focal plane of the second optical lens assembly proportionate to the power spectral density;
• and
• a detector/processor in the focal plane of the second optical lens assembly responsive to the light intensity received by the detector/processor and generating an output signal identifying pulses of the input signal.

A detector and focal plane processor for a matched detection matrix pulse detector, comprising:

• a detector array responsive to an optical image of pulses of an input signal in a given bandwidth;
• a time integrator coupled to the detector array and responsive to signals therefrom, the time integrator sampling the detector output signal at a selected rate and generating an output signal representing the samples of the time integrator;
• a frequency integrator coupled to the output of the time integrator for comparison to a threshold to identify pulses of the input signal in a frequency band corresponding to the time integrator and generating an output varying with time, frequency band, and value exceeding a threshold;
• and
• a tuning command selector coupled to the frequency integrator and responsive to the outputs therefrom for ordering the identified pulses of the input signal in the order of value exceeding the threshold from the largest to the smallest.

A detector and focal plane processor for a matched detection matrix pulse detector, comprising:

• a detector comprising an array of parallel arranged detector arrays each of the detector arrays responsive to pulses of an input signal within a selected bandwidth;
• a plurality of time integrators individually coupled to one of the detector arrays for sampling the signals therefrom to identify the time of occurrence of pulses in the input signal;
• a plurality of frequency integrators individually coupled to one of the time integrators and responsive to the output thereof for identifying pulses in the input signal within a selected frequency band;
• and
• a tuning command selection coupled to the plurality of time integrators for arranging the order of the pulses in the input signal from all of the detector arrays of the detector.