Patent ID: 8392143
Filing Date: 2013-03-05
Classification: F41G,G01S

Abstract:
1. A test station for calibrating a semi-active laser (SAL) seeker including a SAL detector, comprising: a fixture for mounting the SAL seeker, said seeker having an entrance pupil to detect optical energy over a field of view (FOV) and focus the optical energy into a spot on the SAL detector; an array of fixed collimated optical sources that generate respective temporally pulsed optical beams, said sources positioned over the FOV of the seeker and co-aligned so that their respective optical beams overlap the entrance pupil of the seeker; a memory that stores a first source activation profile to generate a transfer function for the SAL detector, said transfer function mapping a spatial displacement ΔX and ΔY in orthogonal axes of a centroid of the spot to azimuth and elevation angles for the source of the spot; a controller responsive to the first source activation profile to activate the sources one at a time in a phase delayed manner to implement the activation profile; and a computing device responsive to the measured spatial displacement ΔX and ΔY for each source as the source is activated to create a table entry for the transfer function in a calibration table that maps the measured ΔX and ΔY to the known azimuth and elevation angles of the activated source.