Re: How could the camera on missiles and smart bombs keep its focus?

From: Poxy (pox_at_poxymail.com)
Date: 03/19/05

  • Next message: Andy P: "Re: help with parts" 
    Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 00:14:25 GMT

    Andy Resnick wrote:
    > Sea Squid wrote:
    >> I was watching the documenrary Century of Warfare. It has some
    >> segments of how the video shot when missiles and bombs are closing
    >> on the target. I guess the missile will fly to the target at 334m/s
    >> so the camera must have a extremely fast zooming and autofocus
    >> trick. Can anybody here provide me with some information?
    >
    > AFAIK, The systems I worked on several years ago were non-imaging: a
    > quadrant dectector or reticle was used to determine pointing. Also,
    > tracking wasn't performed in the final hundred yards or so- the
    > missile flew blind at that point. Most missiles use radar and
    > thermal sensing rather than visual optics.
    >
    > It's not clear what you saw on tv- usually there is a video feed on
    > the aircraft that paints the target, or that drops the ordinance- is
    > that what you were seeing?

    I suspect it is what the poster is referring to. I remeber when the smart
    bomb thing was all the craze, in the TV broadcasts the shot would often zoom
    as the missile flew down the air-duct or into the open window etc, but the
    one's I saw were clearly done afterwards by zooming the video image,
    resulting in tell-tale pixelation.

  • Next message: Andy P: "Re: help with parts"

    Relevant Pages