Chapter 493 Three Frame Esports
Gao Zhendong pressed the main switch and turned on the machine. At the same time, he turned open a valve on the gas cylinder next to it, and a hissing sound came out.

This prototype still uses vortex tubes for cooling. I got this from the Research Institute and I requested several of them.

In terms of air source, Gao Zhendong found a large compressed air bottle and connected it, which can meet the requirements of long-term testing.

There are several large cylinders of this kind nearby.

With the sound of "hissing" air release, the temperature of the line array gradually dropped. On the interface of DJS-60D, a temperature value kept jumping downward. The data came from a thermocouple.

"280K"

"275K"

"..."

This is one of the drawbacks of refrigerated thermal imagers. You have to wait for the refrigeration to reach the predetermined temperature.

The first batch of the Javelin anti-tank missile, which was highly praised by the Citigroup guys, was extremely difficult to use. The cooling head was a major culprit, and another major culprit was the cumbersome operating procedures. Later, the operating procedures were modified, but the cooling head was still the same.

As for our later similar individual bullets, well, it is said that we used non-cooling heads, so there was no need for cooling.

But this was the 60s, and it was a blessing to have a cooled thermal imager, so don't think too much about anything else.

Finally, the prototype made a "beep" sound, and the prism in the optical scanning system began to rotate slowly.

The current rotation speed is far from enough to generate a video, because Gao Zhendong's idea is to try to generate a picture first.

If you can generate a single frame image, then continue.

Moreover, he uses a computer to process sensor data to form an image, rather than using the sensor output signal to directly drive the display, which is a big difference between the two.

The former cannot produce smooth video animation when the computer speed is slow.

The circuit of the latter is more complicated, and Gao Zhendong has not made it yet. Many details of the extracted thermal imager are different from the one Gao Zhendong rubbed by hand, and cannot be directly replaced.

The target of the prototype's observation was a car on the first floor outside the window it was overlooking. It was the car that the Third Branch Factory had reserved for Gao Zhendong. Although it was pitch black outside and basically invisible, it was indeed parked there.

The driver received a strange order today. He was to drive the car to the designated location on the open space under Chief Engineer Gao's building, and then leave the engine idling at night, turn off all the lights, and do nothing else but wait.

There’s no need to look at tanks anymore, let’s take a look at cars first.

On Gao Zhendong's computer screen, 64-pixel dots gradually appeared in rows, and it could be vaguely seen that it was a regular image rather than random noise.

Gao Zhendong was excited, it seemed like there was a way!

This is the first thermal imager that I made by hand with all my efforts, and it is also the first in the world!

Gao Zhendong regretted why he set the optical scanning speed so slowly. It was too torturous, one column per second, and a total of 96 columns needed to be scanned!
Even though today's computers are very slow, the time of one column per second is undoubtedly ridiculously long. In fact, Gao Zhendong wanted to expose the light for a longer time, so that at least one image can be produced.

64 pixels are very rough, but as they are presented row by row, Gao Zhendong can still vaguely make out half of the outline of the car. Look, these are the headlights!
The headlights appear to be three or four pixels high. If you look at this small group of pixels alone, you would never imagine that this is a car headlight. However, the human brain has a strong rendering ability, commonly known as brain supplementation. As long as it is placed in the entire environment, it can be seen.

The images were still being scanned row by row, and the entire picture slowly took shape.

Although the effect is very poor and there are no details, there is no doubt that this is a car, a car in the night. The brightest part is its hood, and underneath is the hot engine!
Gao Zhendong laughed out loud, "Got it! Got it! We have a thermal imager!"

Although it is very primitive, although it is very slow, although its pixels are only 96*64, it is a thermal imager, a thermal imager that can see the enemy clearly in the dark!

Comrades who were working the night shift at the Third Factory heard a burst of "hahahaha" laughter coming from Chief Engineer Gao's office. Many of them thought that something had happened to Gao Zhendong and were rushing to his office.

Then I heard voices coming from behind, "Fuck!", "It's done!", "Now let's see where you can run!"

Oh, so they are doing research, and it sounds like they have been successful. That’s all, and everyone went back.

Gao Zhendong recovered a little from his excitement and looked at the picture carefully.

He called up the raw grayscale data of the image, and there was good news and bad news.

The good news is that the original grayscale of the image is richer than that of the display, with a higher number of grayscale levels.

The bad news is that the display cannot support the perfect display of this data.

That doesn't matter. Even with the current display quality, Gao Zhendong is basically satisfied. On a whim, Gao Zhendong processed the grayscale image and made it into a two-color image, that is, only two grayscales, either black or white. He was happy to find that even at this quality, some valuable information could be vaguely seen.

"Great!" Gao Zhendong clapped his fists and shouted.

The richer the image's grayscale information, the more things the computer has to process. However, with the current state of computer performance, it is not possible to process too much data.

If a thermal imager is used simply for viewing, then the conversion circuit can be used to directly drive the display using the temperature difference electromotive force signal of the linear array. However, if automatic thermal imaging guidance is to be achieved, a computer is essential.

This effect of thermal imager output is undoubtedly extremely beneficial for automatically processing thermal imager data with computers. Of course, it is impossible to be as extreme as using a two-color image, but at least it is possible to achieve a balance by reducing the grayscale.

Gao Zhendong walked to the window and adjusted the focus of the thermal imager prototype. Just now he had enlarged the car to almost fill the entire screen, but now he had moved the car much further away in the camera.

Another long minute passed. This time the details of the car were not as rich as before, and it was even hard to tell that it was a car. However, in the picture, it still appeared as a group of bright pixels. At least it could be judged that this thing was different from the background.

Gao Zhendong began to adjust parameters with great interest, testing the imaging and processing capabilities under various conditions.

The results are both good and bad, or rather, they are not bad, but they are somewhat far from ideal.

The good news is that he found that even if the optical scanning system scans an image at 20 frames per second, the linear array infrared sensor can still output data of sufficient quality and there is still potential to be tapped.

This means that the scanning hardware is sufficient to support the generation of relatively smooth videos. The typical reaction speed of the human eye is 25 frames per second. If the speed exceeds this, people will think that the video is smooth and coherent.

Although the target will move during the scanning process, causing problems such as ghosting in the single-frame image, based on the typical speed of a tank of 60 km/h, 0.05 seconds is only enough for the object to move less than one meter. If the distance is further away, it is almost equivalent to no movement. Overall, it is still acceptable.

The bad news is that even if the DJS-60D tries its best, it can only read and display a few pictures in one second. This is not a thermal imager, but a thermal imaging camera.

But this bad news is not a big problem. The first thing to solve is aiming and viewing. The output signal of the line array can be used directly to drive the display, which will be much faster.

In some applications, it is common that the comprehensive performance of digital cannot beat that of analog, just like the tram was actually invented earlier than the internal combustion locomotive, but the explosion of the tram occurred more than 100 years after its invention.

Gao Zhendong went all out and set the scanning speed at 20 frames per second. The computer processing interval was to process the previous frame before reading the latest one for processing, to see how fast it could go.

Everything was ready. Gao Zhendong picked up the intercom and called the driver downstairs.

"Drive your car and circle around downstairs. Yes, circle around within this range."

The GAZ-69 downstairs started running happily. Gao Zhendong stared at the computer screen and saw the bright pixels representing the car jumping forward on the screen.

The final result is about three to four frames per second.

Gao Zhendong was very satisfied, this speed was acceptable.

One frame is playable, two frames are smooth, and three frames are e-sports!
He asked the driver to stop the car and take a rest after get off work.

He himself began to design a circuit that would directly drive the display using the thermal imager signal, referring to the thermal imager extracted from the system.

The next morning, after Gao Zhendong checked the circuit diagram again and again, he called the electronics laboratory of the third factory and asked them to come and take it away and make it as quickly as possible.

The third factory does not have a dedicated electronics workshop as it is too large and unnecessary, but it is still equipped with an electronic laboratory mainly serving Gao Zhendong.

Comrades from the electronics laboratory came over and took away the circuit diagram, while Gao Zhendong asked someone to bring back some food from the cafeteria. After eating a few bites, he turned around and lay down on the sofa, pulled up his coat, and fell into a deep sleep.

On that day, everyone who came to see Gao Zhendong was stopped. Those inside the Third Factory were stopped outside his office, and those outside the Third Factory were not even allowed into the reception room.

The comrades in the electronic laboratory worked very quickly. Originally, the Third Rolling Mill did not have such skilled workers, and no one knew where they were recruited from. That evening, after the welding was completed, the cleaned circuit board was sent back to Gao Zhendong.

Gao Zhendong replaced the conversion drive circuit into the system, connected its video signal output to the monitor, and then picked up the intercom.

"Keep running!"

The GAZ-69 started up with a rumble and continued to have fun on the open space on the first floor.

Another night passed, and at nine o'clock in the morning, Mr. He, who was in charge of the firepower department of the Grassland Tractor Factory, had just arrived at work when he received an email.

The email was sent by Gao Zhendong and contained only two words.

"Come quickly!"

(End of this chapter)