Measurement of Attitude by Power Spectra (MAPS)

We propose a system to determine object attitude from special video imagery taken from two locations, with an image analysis system based on the Fourier Transform, which provides the spatial power spectrum of the image. The Fourier transform of an image represents the information in terms of angles and spatial frequencies. In this case we are interested only in the angles. The transform of a missile-like target is dominated by one dashed line. The location of this line does not vary with the location of the target in the field of view. The location does not vary with the scale (and thus range) of the target. Even if the target is briefly obscured, there is no need to "search" for the image or the data - in the Fourier transform plane is it just there. This transform approach makes the analysis of data gathering easy, rapid, and very accurate, at the expense of having to perform the 2-D spatial Fourier Transform.