Patent ID: 6947073

Claim:
An apparatus for detecting a moving target utilizing a Moving Target Image Discriminator (MTID) comprising: an optical tracking system comprising: an image sensor connected to a tracking mount; pointing angle measuring and recording devices coupled to said tracking mount; and a system controller configured to operate said tracking mount so as to keep said target near the center of a field of view (FOV) for said image sensor; said MTID including: means for initiating said image sensor; means for receiving successive live images from said image sensor; means for capturing pointing angle data from said pointing angle measuring and recording devices to describe a position for said image sensor; means for generating successive reference images, each of said successive reference images generated by consecutively shifting a previous reference image by an amount corresponding to a change in said pointing angle data, leaving a gap in said previous reference image, and filling said gap with a slice of the live images corresponding to the change in said pointing angle data; means for subtracting said successive reference images from said successive live images, said subtraction resulting in moving target images; and means for outputting said moving target images, thereby detecting said moving target.