Patent ID: 8430578

Claim:
An imaging vehicle, comprising: a frame; a propulsion system mounted to the frame; a main IMU coupled to measure 6-axis rigid body motion of the vehicle's frame, said 6-axis rigid body motion including linear accelerations in x, y and z directions and angular rates of change of roll, pitch and yaw about the respective x, y and z axes; a compliant isolator mounted to the frame; a detector assembly for capturing images of scene, said assembly including an isolated sub-assembly comprising a telescope and a detector mounted on said compliant isolator, said isolator and isolated sub-assembly having a resonant frequency between 5 Hz and 5 kHz to partially isolate said sub-assembly from attitude noise of the rigid body motion of the frame; at least two secondary rate sensors coupled to measure the angular rate of change in yaw and pitch of the isolated sub-assembly; and a computer that processes measurements of the 6-axis rigid body motion and measurements of the angular rate of change in yaw and pitch of the isolated sub-assembly to estimate a 6-axis position in x, y and z and attitude in roll, pitch and yaw of the isolated sub-assembly.