Transmeta Corporation

Autech Corporation

Donald L Cullen

John A Robertson

Sherwood L Fawcett

Martha S Fawcett

The invention comprises a mulch sheet to be placed on the soil around the stalk of a plant. The mulch comprises aluminum flakes bonded to a woven mesh which aluminum flakes will reflect rays of the sun upward to the underside of the leaves and the mat will hold moisture in the ground which has seeped into the ground through the porous mat. The aluminum flakes are applied to the upper tacky surface of a thermoplastic woven mat and are pressed into the tacky surface to hold them in position after the thermoplastic, fibrous mat cools to freeze the flake in place. In additional embodiments, it is sometimes appropriate to make a pod containing a seed which will be secured to the underside of the matting in the open hole. A layer on the underside of the mat could include a layer of fertilizer.

Aluminum flake mulch

A non-contacting electrostatic mark/sense length measurement gauge is used to place discrete areas of electrostatic charge at very accurately spaced intervals along a relatively moving material surface. Special construction of both the electrostatic marking and sensing transducers is employed. To compensate for expected unreliability of the mark/sense length gauge, a conventional highly reliable but less accurate contacting length gauge (such as a tachometer in rolling contact with the relatively moving material) is employed. The output from the electrostatic mark/sense length gauge and from the tachometer length gauge are combined by special electronic circuits to provide a length measurement of the passing material which is both highly accurate and reliable under all expected measurement conditions.

Growing community of inventors

Worthington, OH, United States of America

Donald L Cullen