US 9,196,041 B2Granted

System, method, and computer program product for indicating hostile fire

AssigneeLockheed Martin Corporation

InventorsStephen C. Moraites, Shawn McPhail, Donald Sobiski

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Abstract

A network for indicating and communicating detection of hostile fire, and systems, methods, and computer program products thereof. Hostile fire is optically detected and identified at a first vehicle and such identification is transmitted from the first vehicle to one or more other vehicles in the network. Data regarding hostile fire directed at the first vehicle can be stored at one or more of the other vehicles and even retransmitted to other vehicles or base stations.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A network for communicating detection of hostile fire, the network comprising:

a first system mountable at a first position, the first system being operative during the day and at night to determine whether the first position is an intended target of a fired unguided energetic projectile, the first system including:
an infrared (IR) camera mountable at the first position, said IR camera having a field of view (FOV) and a predetermined sensitivity sufficient to capture a heat signature of the fired unguided energetic projectile, the heat signature including at least one of a firing component generated upon firing of the projectile, a tracer-related component, and a friction component generated by friction as the projectile travels through the troposphere, pixels of the IR camera being operative to capture a portion of a trail of energy associated with the heat signature of the fired projectile;
an image processor operative to receive signals from said IR camera corresponding to the captured portion of the trail of energy, said image processor being operative to post-process in substantially real time the signals from said IR camera and to make a determination as to whether the first position was the intended target of the fired projectile by analyzing calculated vertical and horizontal miss distances of the fired projectile, the vertical and horizontal miss distances being calculated based on a product of the vertical and horizontal pixel trails, respectively, in the captured portion of the trail of energy as functions of time and projectile velocity,
wherein horizontal and vertical miss distances are measured based on the rate of change the projectile trail (first derivative) and the rate of rate of change of the projectile trail (second derivative), where the first derivative is calculated by
(
Δ
⁢
⁢
pixels
Δ
⁢
⁢
frames
)
,
and the second derivative is calculated by
(
Δ
2
⁢
⁢
pixels
Δ
⁢
⁢
frames
2
)
,
and the product of the horizontal and vertical pixel trail comprises a mathematical product of the first and second derivative;
and
a transmitter to transmit to a second system mountable at a second position of the network signals indicating that the first position is subject to hostile fire based on the determination by said image processor that the first position was the intended target of the fired projectile.

29 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

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Abstract

A network for communicating detection of hostile fire, the network comprising:

a first system mountable at a first position, the first system being operative during the day and at night to determine whether the first position is an intended target of a fired unguided energetic projectile, the first system including:
an infrared (IR) camera mountable at the first position, said IR camera having a field of view (FOV) and a predetermined sensitivity sufficient to capture a heat signature of the fired unguided energetic projectile, the heat signature including at least one of a firing component generated upon firing of the projectile, a tracer-related component, and a friction component generated by friction as the projectile travels through the troposphere, pixels of the IR camera being operative to capture a portion of a trail of energy associated with the heat signature of the fired projectile;
an image processor operative to receive signals from said IR camera corresponding to the captured portion of the trail of energy, said image processor being operative to post-process in substantially real time the signals from said IR camera and to make a determination as to whether the first position was the intended target of the fired projectile by analyzing calculated vertical and horizontal miss distances of the fired projectile, the vertical and horizontal miss distances being calculated based on a product of the vertical and horizontal pixel trails, respectively, in the captured portion of the trail of energy as functions of time and projectile velocity,
wherein horizontal and vertical miss distances are measured based on the rate of change the projectile trail (first derivative) and the rate of rate of change of the projectile trail (second derivative), where the first derivative is calculated by
(
Δ
⁢
⁢
pixels
Δ
⁢
⁢
frames
)
,
and the second derivative is calculated by
(
Δ
2
⁢
⁢
pixels
Δ
⁢
⁢
frames
2
)
,
and the product of the horizontal and vertical pixel trail comprises a mathematical product of the first and second derivative;
and
a transmitter to transmit to a second system mountable at a second position of the network signals indicating that the first position is subject to hostile fire based on the determination by said image processor that the first position was the intended target of the fired projectile.

29 more elements