The Boeing Company

Sundstrand Data Control, Inc.

Bruce S Howard

Ali Salour

Jai Joon Choi

Stephen John Bennison

Laurance N Hazlehurst

Sidney Ly

John Dempsey Morris

Mark A Woods

Garrett C Hanson

Erik Lund

Silas Lawton Studley

Mark C Boberg

Patrick Lee Anderson

Mark S Bunker

Matthew R Desjardien

Derek J Flolid

William O Walters

Stephen Glade Holley

James Charles Van Avery

Karl Loren Johnson

Paul Edward Jennerjohn

Michael Karas

Benjamin Bowen Lee

Al Salour

Vincent Thompson

Victor Gary Hart

Derek Willis

Chen-En Chen

Anh-Thu N Thai

Eric J Walker

John D O'Connell

Lori E Kovarik (Forner)

Christer E Bjorkegren

Blake Rafferty

Laurence N Hazlehurst

John D O'CONNELL

An apparatus for forming a material layer onto a form tool may include at least one nosepiece configured to laterally sweep a ply carrier onto a form tool contour. The apparatus may include a pair of tension arms configured to support opposing lateral sides of a ply carrier having a material layer mounted to a lower surface thereof. The apparatus may include one or more actuators configured to position the tension arms during forming of the ply carrier to the form tool contour. The one or more actuators may be configured to sense and control lateral tension in the ply carrier during forming of the ply carrier to the form tool contour.

Apparatus and method for automated layup of composite structures

An alert system may include an alert sender module, an alert routing module, an alert controller module, and an alert mechanism. The alert sender module may be configured to send an encrypted alert independent of an internet security firewall. The alert routing module may have a registry and may be configured to receive the encrypted alert and process the encrypted alert according to a security mechanism associated with the registry. The alert controller module may be configured to accept the encrypted alert from the alert routing module according to the security mechanism. The alert mechanism may be configured to be activated by the alert controller module.

System and method for transmitting an alert

In one embodiment, a data acquisition device comprises a plurality of sensors to detect an environmental condition, a configurable processor coupled to the plurality of sensors, wherein the configurable processor is configured to receive one or more signals from the plurality of sensors and process the one or more signals to generate environmental data representative of the environmental condition, and a first input/output module to transmit the data to a remote device. Other embodiments may be disclosed.

Reconfigurable network enabled plug and play multifunctional processing and sensing node

A method and apparatus for measuring the bore diameter of a hole as a function of hole depth is disclosed. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises a diametric probe, for generating first measured bore diameter data along a diametric probe sensitive axis; a foot, for positioning the diametric probe sensitive axis in a plane parallel to the hole; a linear distance probe, coupled to the diametric probe, for generating first measured depth data describing the depth of the diametric probe sensitive axis within the hole; and a data acquisition system, for recording first measured bore diameter data from the diametric probe and first measured depth data from the linear distance probe of an insertion of the diametric probe into the hole.

Method and apparatus for hole diameter profile measurement

An inspection device includes a mount that secures the inspection device to the object for travel along the object, a sensor attached to the mount that measures characteristics of the object, and a position indicator attached to the mount that determines the position of the inspection device on the object.

High speed linear displacement measurement

A measuring instrument and method for measuring paint and coating thickness on conductive and poorly conductive substrates. The instrument uses a microwave amplifier, a measurement cavity, and a reference cavity with supporting electronics to measure the apparent changes in the length of the measurement cavity due to the changes in the paint and coating thickness. The measurement cavity resonates when the measurement cavity is set upon the test surface. The oscillating signal is sent through a reference cavity tuned to give the desired filtered response to cover the paint and coating thickness range allowed. The filtered response of the reference cavity is converted to a dc level signal that serves as input to a data acquisition circuit. The data acquisition circuit converts the input signal to digital form so that the calibration method may be used to associate a given response with the corresponding paint and coating thickness.

Portable paint thickness gauge for composite materials using resonant cavities at x-band

A fastener measurement system includes a number of gauge blocks, each having a tapered bore disposed therein. Each gauge block has a number of conical inserts that fit within the tapered bore. The inserts have a central bore of varying sizes to receive fasteners of different shank diameters. The gauge block includes a beveled surface at the point where the bore meets a top surface of the gauge block. The beveled surface reduces wear and allows the gauge block to be easily calibrated. A computer system receives measurements made by a linear transducer that measures the height of the fastener above the surface of the gauge block a correction factor .delta. is added to the height measured to produce an indication of the true head height of the fastener. The computer system prompts the user to test the head heights of a random sample of fasteners and prints a report of the head heights as well as an indication of whether the sample of fasteners meets engineering specifications.

Fastener measurement system

A real-time fastener measurement system includes an anvil (10) having a striking surface (16) that engages a fastener as it is upset. Three proximity sensors (20) are disposed at 120.degree. intervals around a striking surface of the anvil. A computer system (110) reads the electronic signals produced by the proximity sensors just after the fastener has been upset and converts the signals to digital values. The computer stores a piecewise linear function that has been predetermined for each sensor and uses the function to convert the digital values of the proximity sensor to fastener head height.

Real-time fastener measurement system

A portable siting system particularly useful for siting a portable localizer for a collocated approach guidance system for aircraft utilizes a laser range finder in conjunction with a shaft encoder to determine the distance between the localizer and two arbitrary points along a runway center line as well as the azimuth offset between the two points. A microprocessor is used to compute the number of degrees the antenna of the localizer must be rotated so that its beam intersects the extended runway center line at a predetermined point based on trigonometric computations performed on the two measured distances and the measured angle.

Portable localizer siting system

A metal body located below a metal surface layer is detected by energizing inductance coils in a bridge circuit at a frequency below 10 KHz to avoid skin effect as one of the coils is placed proximate said body. A threshold circuit determines when bridge unbalance is caused by other than the surface layer and provides positive identification of the metal body.

Detection of electrically conductive materials beneath surface coatings

An analog signal produced in response to eddy current probing of a test part is digitized by an analog-to-digital processor and then entered into a microprocessor-based computer. The digitized conductivity test signal is then acted on by a series of processors including a zero suppress processor which determines if the probe is in contact with a part to be tested and has settled in that position so that an accurate conductivity measurement can be made; a data acquisition processor which receives the conductivity test signal and converts it by means of an interpolation routine into a conductivity signal referenced to a predetermined standard, such as % IACS; a limit processor which compares the converted conductivity test signal with conductivity limits retrieved from the computer memory and based on different alloys and tempers, and which causes the results of such comparison to be displayed on 'good/bad' alarms; a peak detection processor which determines that a peak conductivity has been registered after the probe has been disposed in positive contact with the test part; a parts counting processor which responds to the detection of a peak conductivity and in response thereto increments a parts-tested counter; a speech synthesizer processor which is enabled by the peak detection processor and verbally announces, by speech synthesis, the measured peak conductivity; and a recalibration interrupt processor in which the main loop of the programmed microcomputer is interrupted after a predetermined operating interval to disable the test apparatus until it has been recalibrated using a standard of known conductivity.

Alloy testing apparatus using eddy current conductivity probe

A material hardness testing apparatus is provided, for use in quality control of production materials and parts, in which a pneumatically actuated indenter probe, incorporating an LVDT displacement transducer, is coupled by an analog-to-digital converter to a microprocessor-based computer that controls the cyclic actuation of the indentor probe, and processes indenter measurement data received from the LVDT transducer. The pneumatically actuated indenter probe includes pneumatic control means for providing independently adjustable control over the rates of probe impact and retraction in order to achieve consistent hardness measurements from cycle to cycle, together with relatively rapid displacement cycling of the indenter probe. The microprocessor-based computer incorporates a recalibration processor which automatically causes the testing apparatus to branch into a recalibration routine after a predetermined period of operation. During such recalibration, the apparatus semi-automatically tests and compares the measured hardness of one or more reference specimens with hardness values stored in memory and either disables the testing apparatus when the measured hardness deviates from the standard by a predetermined percentage amount, or stores in memory the difference between the measured hardness and the standard and enables the apparatus to continue with further testing. In each succeeding test, the apparatus automatically subtracts or adds the magnitude of the memorized difference to the raw measured hardness value to correct the hardness reading displayed by the apparatus.

Indenter-type hardness testing apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Bruce S Howard