A mobile tracking system for the acquisition and tracking of small, long range targets is developed. The system incorporates both visible and infrared imaging assets, along with the associated optics, video distribution, and recording elements. In order to accurately track long range targets, a robust mislevel calibration is required to reduce pointing error, as part of the larger overall system error budget including the pedestal’s total angular error. A mislevel calibration process is presented including a mechanically based coarse level and software based fine level. Determining pedestal orientation to true north is discussed, and the processing of coordinate data is reviewed for a representative tracking system. A method for test and verification of the system calibrations is described both from a subsystem and system level.
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