Patent ID: 8502128

Claim:
A dual-mode sensor, comprising: a primary optical element having a common aperture for collecting and focusing active guidance radiation and passive imaging radiation along a common optical path; a secondary optical element in the common optical path, said secondary optical element separating the active guidance and passive imaging radiation and directing the active guidance radiation along a first optical path and directing the passive imaging radiation along a second optical path, said primary and secondary optical elements defining an entrance pupil and an exit pupil in the first optical path; a passive imaging radiation detector in the second optical path that detects focused passive imaging radiation to generate at least one passive imaging guidance signal; and an active guidance radiation measurement subsystem in the first optical path at or near an intermediate image plane formed by the primary and secondary optical elements, said active guidance radiation measurement subsystem comprising: an array of optical focusing elements, said array spatially encoding an angle of incidence of the active guidance radiation incident at said entrance pupil and spatially encoding wavefront tilt deviations emanating from sub-pupils of said exit pupil onto the active guidance radiation at an image plane of the array of optical focusing elements; an active imaging detector at the image plane of the array of optical focusing elements that converts the spatially encoded active guidance radiation into an electrical signal; and a processor that processes the electrical signal in accordance with the respective spatial encodings to generate at least one active guidance signal and a wave front error estimate for the primary optical element.