Patent ID: 8386096

Claim:
A relative navigation system for at least two objects having relative movement, comprising: a grid generator provided on a first object and configured to project into space a plurality of modulated lines to form a grid defining a first relative reference frame associated with a first origin point on the first object, wherein the grid generator is configured to uniquely modulate each of the plurality of lines to encode a grid word comprised of multiple bits; a detector array comprising multiple detector modules provided on the other of the at least two objects, and configured to detect at least a portion of the grid and provide an output, wherein each of the multiple detector modules has a field of view large enough to allow the detection of the modulated grid word of at least one modulated line; and a controller provided on the other of the at least two objects, and configured to receive the output and determine at least one of a relative range and an attitude between the first object and the other of the at least two objects based on the output.