IMPROVED OPTICAL TRACKING PROCESSOR

MUCH WORK HAS BEEN DONE OF LATE IN OPTICAL TARGET TRACKING. THE BULK OF IT HAS INVOLVED CENTROID TRACKING, ROSETTE SCANNING, EDGE TRACKING, AND "INTELLIGENT TRACKING ALGORITHMS" SUCH AS BAYESIAN ALGORITHMS AND OTHER STATISTICAL METHODS. ALL OF THESE METHODS SUFFER FROM FLAWS THAT MAKE THE RESULTANT TRACKING SYSTEMS VULNERABLE TO SIMPLE COUNTERMEASURES. THE SIMPLEST, AND MOST EFFECTIVE COUNTERMEASURE IS FOUNDED IN THE CREATION OF ARTIFACT IN THE SCENE. THE PROPOSED PROTOTYPE TRACKING SYSTEM OVERCOMES THE ARTIFACT PROBLEM QUITE WELL. THE HARDWARE BASED ISCAN TARGET TRACKER PROVIDES AUTOMATIC ARTIFACT ELIMINATION BY TRACKING THE GEOMETRIC CENTER OF THE LARGEST SINGLE TARGET WHILE IGNORING ALL OTHER APPARENT TARGETS IN THE FIELD OF VIEW IMAGED ON THE SENSOR ARRAY. THE FACT THAT THE BASIC TRACKING ALGORITHM HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED IN SILICON, MEANS THAT IT IS ALSO FAST. IT CAN PROCESS A FULL 1024 X 512 ARRAY IN 5 MSEC (200 FPS) OUTPUTTING TARGET POSITION AND SIZE DATA WITH 9 BIT RESOLUTION. THE PURPOSE OF THIS PROPOSED SBIR PROGRAM IS TO DEMONSTRATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE ISCAN TARGET TRACKER AND TO EXPERIMENT WITH VARIOUS FRONT END AND POST PROCESSING ROUTINES TO PROVIDE DEMONSTRATION OF THE WIDEST POSSIBLE RANGE OF COUNTERMEASURES.