Advanced High Speed Digital Spacecraft Electro-Optical Sensor Data Processing Module with Laser Communications Application

A laser beam detection and tracking system includes a focal plane array sensor providing pixel data and a field programmable gate array controller receiving the pixel data for determining a centroid of the illuminating spot of the impinging laser beam and for determining variably sized windows of interest disposed around the spot for selecting a subset of pixels of the array for communicating a subset of the pixel of a window frame of data from the array to the controller for increasing the array frame rate for reducing laser jitter during tracking of the beam for improved beam tracking performance.