Detailed drawing of the gimbal/sensor/camera assembly
Designing and building such a missle seeker is beyond the scope of the MADEFAST project. Instead, we are building a somewhat simpler device with a non-lethal mission: to track a light displayed on a wall. This ARPA mission was given to MADEFAST in writing in an email message by Pradeep Pkhosla in April of 1994.
The
current state of the seeker assembly consists of a set of gimbals,
narrow enough to fit in a missle, powered by small electric motors,
controled by visible light sensors and a control system. The
controls operate to keep the sensor directed at a dot of light.
A camera is attached for visible imaging.
Detailed drawing of the gimbal/sensor/camera assembly
The construction of a real missle seeker (built by
Texas Instruments)
is shown in this
exploded part diagram. To see how complicated a real seeker is,
check out some of the
other TI diagrams.