Abstract: A video controlled solid state range finding system includes an opto-electric camera and a helium neon laser. The laser applies coherent light to a beam splitter which applies a reference beam to the camera and an outgoing beam to a first angularly variable reflector which directs the outgoing beam to the object. An incoming beam from the object is reflected to a second angularly variable reflector and thus to the camera via the beam splitter. The first and second reflectors are configured with respect to the beam splitter so that the distance D travelled by the outgoing beam is the same as the distance travelled by the incoming beam from the second reflector to the beam splitter. The reference beam produces a reference signal and the incoming beam produces an object signal at the camera. The difference between the reference and object signals is used to vary the angle A between the outgoing beam and the reference line (31), and the angle B between the incoming beam and the reference line.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for automatic and/or manual adaptive bandwidth compression of telemetry.An adaptive sampler (16) samples a video signal from a scanning sensor (12) and generates a sequence of sampled fields. Each field and range rate information from the sensor are then sequentially transmitted to and stored in a multiple adaptive field storage means (22). The field storage means (22) then, in response to an automatic or manual control signal, transfers the stored sampled field signals to a video monitor (24) in a form for sequential or simultaneous display of a desired number of stored field signals.The sampling ratio of the adaptive sample (16), the relative proportion of available communication bandwidth allocated respectively to transmitted data and video information, and the number of fields simultaneously displayed are manually or automatically selectively adjustable in functional relation to each other and detected range rate.