METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR OPTICAL LOCATION Russian patent published in 2015 - IPC G01S17/42 

FIELD: physics.

SUBSTANCE: surrounding space is scanned in the horizontal plane and a video frame with an object is selected the distance to which is to be measured . The vertical and horizontal coordinates of the image of the object are measured relative to the coordinates of the beginning of the video frame. The horizontal coordinate of the object is calculated by summing the coordinate of the beginning of the selected video frame with the value of the horizontal coordinate in the video frame. The sight axis of the laser range-finder is set based on the measured vertical coordinate of the object. During the next scanning cycle, the range to the object is measured at the moment when the sight axis of the laser-range finder passes through the horizontal coordinate of the object calculated during the previous scanning cycle. An apparatus which realises the method includes an optical-electronic module on a scanning platform which rotates about a vertical axis and is equipped with a drive and an angular position sensor. The laser-range finder is placed on its single-axis platform capable of rotating in the vertical plane and equipped with a drive and an angular position sensor.

EFFECT: enabling measurement of range to an object with a laser-range finder with continuous high-speed scanning of the surrounding space, including circular scanning.

2 cl, 2 dwg