A laser tracking processor is provided for integrating measured target-reflection signals used in directional control. The integration is performed to distinguish pulses reflected from the target against a noise background. The processor includes an optical detector, an accumulator, a correlator, a phase-lock loop and an integrator array. The optical detector receives the measured signals distributed among several guidance channels. The accumulator sums the measured signals as a combined signal for all the channels. The correlator temporally identifies an event that occurs to indicate a target-reflection pulse within the combined signal. The phase-lock loop synchronizes the event with a clock reference to produce a pulse window within which to search the combined signal for the pulses. The integrator array superimposes the measured signals within the pulse window for each channel to produce channel-specific integrated pulse signals. The processor can further include a sum integrator, a noise comparator and a reset trigger. The sum integrator superimposes a temporal sequence of combined signals from the accumulator as sum integration signals. The noise comparator determines whether the sum integrated signals exceed a noise threshold to set a detection satisfaction condition. The reset trigger initializes the temporal sequence of the integrator array and the sum integrator in response to the detection satisfaction condition, so that as the processor approaches the target, the guidance system can receive updates from the measured signals after becoming distinguishable above the noise.