<title>Design of an IR/video imaging feature-based autotracker for the Macintosh-hosted G4 processor</title>

Abstract

The community of imaging missile system development is burdened by the custom build methodology for the implementation of Automatic Target Trackers (Autotrackers). Normally this is the most effective development path considering the high performance realtime requirements of an image processing system such as an Autotracker. However, with the progress made in modern and inexpensive compute platforms, it is now possible to achieve rapid insertion of the algorithm development platform with the sensor system, allowing refinement of algorithms and establishing known performance limits early in the development cycle. In past programs the Autotracker was often overlooked in importance, and was not given the financial resources for effective development within the system. In order to overcome this short coming, a cost effective Autotracker platform has been developed which can be readily inserted into most systems with minimum and sometimes no additional hardware or software required. We describe the hardware and interface design of a realtime multi-mode Terminal-homing Missile Autotracker that has been optimized to utilize the vector functionality of the Macintosh resident G4 Processor.