This paper proposes a fast initial acquisition method for light beacons realized by estimating uncertain regions and rectangle honeycomb spiral scanning. First compute with the global position system (GPS) coordinates of both terminals to obtain the azimuth angle and the pitch angle of an optical antenna, which rotates accordingly and roughly points to the light beacon. Then the uncertain regions are estimated by the measurement errors of the GPS coordinates. The optical antenna scans in the uncertain regions to lead the beacon into the field of view of the charge-coupled device and achieve initial acquisition for the beacon light. Besides, analyze the topology, the speed and the coverage areas of the rectangle honeycomb spiral scanning, conduct fast acquisition experiments with a two-dimensional platform in the estimated uncertain regions. The results verify that fast initial acquisition for beacons can be achieved with the proposed method.
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