Patent Document ID: 6111241
Application ID: 09207899
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. In a seeker for locating and tracking a target in a scene by detecting and processing laser pulses reflected by the target in the scene, the seeker having semi-active laser last pulse logic circuit for determining the last pulse indicative of the true target, the circuit containing a pulse discriminator for setting a pulse detection threshold, the threshold decaying at a given constant rate, and for producing pulse presence signals in response to the detected laser pulses and a microprocessor capable of receiving and processing the pulse presence signals and producing sequential decoder gates to be used to detect the reflected laser pulses at a pre-selected pulse repetition frequency and of generating an acquisition pulse upon the location of the target by the last pulse logic; an improvement for rendering the seeker capable of processing multi-spectral target pulses, thereby achieving a more accurate target location and tracking, said improvement comprising: a single PIN detector coupled to the pulse discriminator, said detector being suitable for temporal detection of several of the 1.06 .mu.m laser pulses reflected by the target scene; an imaging infrared focal plane array for spatial detection of several of the laser pulses reflected by the target scene, said array detecting the laser pulses for variable time durations; a video memory for storing the laser pulses detected by said focal plane array, said video memory being coupled to the microprocessor; read-out electronics coupled between said focal plane array and said video memory to relay the detected laser pulses from said array to said memory; and means for correlating the laser pulses temporally detected by said PIN detector and the laser pulses spatially detected by said array, such correlation resulting in a more accurate location and tracking of the target.