Other

Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc.

Ford New Holland, Inc.

L-3 Insight Technology Incorporated

Charles G Bagg

Ronald T Sheehan

William Edward Ham

Peter G Mitchell

A lighter-than-air semi-rigid airship has Configurable Buoyancy And Geometry (CBAG) allowing it to become short and plump for high buoyancy during takeoff and landing, but also allowing it to become long and slim for reduced drag (albeit less buoyancy) so that it may travel at high speed. It may be combined with a heavier-than-air structure having wings or rotors to form a hybrid aircraft whereby the wings or rotors provide enough lift to compensate for the reduced buoyancy during high-speed flight.

Configurable buoyancy and geometry (CBAG) airship

An acoustic suspension speaker enclosure is filled with a heavy gas, which has a much lower sonic velocity than air. This allows the enclosure to operate at a much lower frequency, in direct proportional to the reduction in sonic velocity.

Gas-filled acoustic suspension speaker

A laser marker/designator has an energy storage and conversion circuit providing a constant input current to a solid state pulsed pump diode.

Pump diode driver circuit

A parallel data bus tester is particularly applicable to SCSI type buses, and uses a plurality of comparator circuits to simultaneously examine the voltages present on the conductors of a bus cable. For twisted pair type conductors, the tester uses a high reference voltage, which is compared to the high voltage conductor of each pair, and a low reference voltage, which is compared to the low voltage conductor of each pair. The reference voltages are adjustable, and allow each reference voltage to be swept through the expected voltage range for its respective conductors. As the level of a reference voltage crosses that of a conductor voltage being examined, a comparator that receives the reference voltage and conductor voltage changes output state. This output is used to drive a corresponding LED assigned to the conductor in question. Thus, as the reference voltage, which is compared to each of its corresponding conductor voltages (i.e., high or low), is swept through the voltage range of those conductors, the LEDs for each conductor turn on. If any of the LEDs turns on at a significantly different voltage level than the others, it indicates a potential problem with that conductor. Latch circuits for each of the comparator outputs are also provided, allowing intermittent errors to be recorded.

Integrity tester for parallel signal bus

An agricultural harvesting machine having a cutting element movably supported thereon is provided with a height sensor including a transmitter and a receiver mounted for movement with the cutting element. The transmitter directs bursts of sound waves in the range of about 5 KHz toward the ground and echoes of the bursts are picked up by the receiver, the elapsed time between transmission and reception being an indication of the height of the cutting element above the ground. To distinguish between echoes of the bursts and environmental noise picked up by the receiver, the bursts are encoded by transmitting them in pairs, the bursts of a pair being of fixed duration and separated by a fixed interval of time. The duration of each signal and the time spacing between signals is checked and if they are not of the correct duration or are not separated by the fixed interval of time they are rejected as noise. The time between transmission and reception of a burst is measured to provide an indication of the height of the cutting element. The measured height is compared with a reference or desired height and the difference value is used to control movement of the cutting element to the desired height.

Growing community of inventors

Fitchburg, MA, United States of America

Charles G Bagg