| 摘要 |
1,085,944. Automatic attitude control. ELLIOTT BROS. (LONDON) Ltd. May 19, 1964 [May 23, 1963], No. 20664/63. Heading G3R. [Also in Division H4] In a system in which attitude deviations of an unattached body relative to an external source of radiation are automatically corrected, the deviations are detected by a device which produces signals, variable with the angle of incidence of radiation, which are further modified by masking means in dependence on angle of deviation. Fig. 1 shows an air-pressurized portion 1 of the nosecone of a space rocket provided, at 90‹ intervals round its circumference towards the rear, with sunlight sensitive units 5 which control valves 4 associated with a compressed nitrogen bottle 2 so that jets Issuing from nozzles 3 are controlled in an on-off manner to maintain the axis of the nose-cone at a desired attitude relative to the sun. Each sunlight sensitive unit 5, which has a cover 10 thrown off when the nose-cone separates from its booster, comprises (a) a photocell 6, responsive to light from a forward direction over a wide angle, associated with a shadow mask 11 so shaped that the photo-cell output is a square root function of the attitude deviation, (b) a photocell 7 responsive to light from a rearward direction over a wide angle, and (c) a photo-cell 8 associated with a prism 9 to be responsive to light from a forward direction over a narrow angle. As shown in Fig. 2, the combined outputs of photocells 6 and 7 control jet valves 4 through a threshold unit 13 and a power amplifier 14. A rate of turn signal from a gyro 17 is added through a noise filter 16. Drift is avoided by applying the outputs of photo-cells 8 through an integrator 12 which is only rendered effective when sunlight falls on photo-cells 8. When the resultant control signal exceeds the threshold of unit 13 a jet is produced in the appropriate direction to correct the attitude and feedback is applied through an integrator 18. The electronic control gear is contained in a housing 15 which is cooled by the fall in pressure of bottle 2. |
