OPTICAL MULTIPLE TARGET SURVEILLANCE POINTING ACQUISITION AND TRACKING SENSORS

FOR THE SPACE-BASED STRATEGIC DEFENSE SYSTEM, CONVENTIONAL OPTICAL BEAM POINTING/STEERING/TRACKING SYSTEM USING MECHANICAL GIMBALS HAS NUMEROUS SHORTCOMINGS SUCH AS HEAVY WEIGHT, HIGH PROBABILITY OF ERRORS, LONG ACQUISITION TIME, AND LARGE FRICTIONAL AND BEARING NOISE.THE CONVENTIONAL MECHANICAL SERVO CANNOT TRACK MULTIPLE TARGETS SIMULTANEOUSLY AND CANNOT PERFORM WIDE ANGLE SURVEILLANCE DUE TO LIMITED BANDWIDTH OF SERVO LOOPS. TO REDUCE OR ELIMINATE THESE SHORTCOMINGS, A WIDE VIEW, FAST STEERING OPTICAL SURVEILLANCE, POINTING, ACQUISITION, AND TRACKING SENSOR FOR MULTIPLE TARGETS IS REQUIRED. TO ADDRESS THIS NEED, MULTIAPERTURE COMPOUND EYE CONFIGURATIONS AND ADAPTIVE OPTICAL MULTIBEAM PHASED STEERING ARRAYS FOR MULTIPLE TARGETS SURVEILLANCE, POINTING, ACQUISITION, AND TRACKINGARE BEING INVESTIGATED, ANALYZED AND COMPARED AGAINST DERIVED DESIGN PARAMETERS. BOTH APPROACHES HAVE ADVANTAGES OF MORE THAN HEMISPHERIC COVERAGE AND MULTITARGET HANDLING CAPABILITY. HARDWARE FABRICATION TECHNOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE BY USING FIBER OPTICS, INTEGRATED OPTICS, OPTO-ELECTRONICS, AND HIGHLY SENSITIVE OPTIC DETECTION. FOR EXAMPLE, LINBO3 OR GAAS INTEGRATED PHASE SHIFTERS CAN BE USED TO STEER THE MULTIPLE OPTICAL BEAMS. LOW NOISE MESFETS SERVE AS VERY SENSITIVE PHOTODETECTORS TO DESIGN THE ALMOST QUANTUM NOISE LIMITED DETECTION SYSTEMS.