Development of DSTS; a Digital Static Tracking System

For many years, “cinetheodolites” and/or “kineto tracking mounts” have been used to image and track the trajectories of flying objects. This activity has created fleets of impressive hardware and its expert operators and maintainers.  Imaging requires narrow fields of view, thus large lenses. Trajectory tracking requires precision pointing from multiple view directions, and associated knowledge of lines-of-sight to the object being tracked.  The net effect of these goals is the assembly and operation of fleets of large-lensed imagers, each precision-gimbaled and geographically dispersible over a multi-km test range. For flare-development purposes, burning flares, ejected from flying aircraft, need to be trajectory-tracked.While the machinery described above can execute such “flare-tracking,” a much simpler and cheaper approach is desired.  As imaging of such flares is not needed, only trajectory-tracking, and the trajectory-tracking need not follow the flare through huge volumes of sky, one or two cubic km suffices, a much simpler approach is possible. The Proposed System Concept: Digital Static Tracking System (DSTS) The system would deploy several multi-Mpixel imagers, each: ? Firmly affixed to the ground (not articulating) ? With known position (to a few cm) and attitude (to 100urad) ? With wide-angle lenses, about 60degrees HFoV, ? With pre-measured “lens distortion” ? Imaging from a different aspect the “test volume” of sky, about a cubic km ? Capturing images with “time synchronization” The above system would be built and tested in nine tasks: TASK I. Imaging Node Component Selection Duration: 3 months Deliverable: Node Design Report TASK II. Initial Node, Build & Test Duration: 6 months Deliverable: Node Build and Test Report TASK III. Multiple Nodes, Build and Use First DSTS Duration: 4 months Deliverable: System First Use Report TASK IV. Identify and Compensate Pointing Errors Duration: 2 months Deliverable: Report of Mis-pointing Correction TASK V. Image Flying FLARES, Find/Track Algorithmically Duration: 1 month Deliverable: Report of Imaging Flares and Algorithmically Tracking Them in the Pixel Array TASK VI. First All-Up DSTS Test Duration: 1 month Deliverable: First DSTS Field-Evaluation Report TASK VII. Second All-Up DSTS Test Duration: 1 month Deliverable: Second DSTS Field-Evaluation Report TASK VIII. Third All-Up DSTS Test Duration: 1 month Deliverable: Third DSTS Field-Evaluation Report TASK IX. Final DSTS Delivery Duration: 2 months Deliverable: All-Up DSTS, Users Manuals