Patent ID: 7136726

Claim:
An airborne reconnaissance system comprising: Gimbals having at least two degrees of freedom; At least one array of light sensors positioned on the gimbals, for being directed by the same within at least two degrees of freedom; Map storage means for storing at least one Digital Elevation Map of an area of interest, divided into portions; Inertial Navigation System for real-time providing to a gimbals control unit navigation and orientation data of the aircraft with respect to a predefined global axes system; Portion selection unit for selecting, one at a time, another area portion from the area of interest; Servo control unit for: A. Receiving from said Digital Elevation Map one at a time, a coordinates set of the selective area portion, said set comprising the x:y coordinates of said area portion, and the elevation z of the center of that portion; B. Receiving continuously from said inertial navigation system present location and orientation data of the aircraft; C. Repeatedly calculating and conveying into a gimbals servo unit in real time and at a high rate signals for: a. during a direction period, signals for directing accordingly the gimbals including said at least one array of light-sensing units towards said x:y:z coordinates of the selected area portion, and; b. during an integration period, in which the array sensors integrates light coming from the area portion, providing to the gimbals unit signals for compensating for the change in direction towards the x:y:z coordinates of the selected portion evolving from the aircraft motion; Gimbals servo for effecting direction of the gimbals in at least two degrees of freedom according to the signals provided from said Servo Control Unit; Sampling means for simultaneously sampling at the end of the integration period pixel levels from each of said array sensors, a set of all of said sampled pixel levels forms an image of said area portion; and Storage means for storing a plurality of area portion images.