United Technologies Corporation

Otis Elevator Company

Francois M Mottier

George R Wisner

Gary E Palma

Martin C Foster

Jeff Izard

Passengers approaching an elevator are distinguished from other people standing in front of an elevator door by obtaining an image signal of an area in front of the elevator door and masking out of the image signal increasing with time greater portions thereof when no motion is indicated by the image signal for controlling door movement when motion is detected in an unmasked portion of the image.

Elevator passenger detector and door control system which masks portions

A bearing arrangement for rotatably supporting a generally cylindrical journal having an outer circumferential surface exhibiting out-of-round deviations superimposed on a perfect cylinder that is centered on a longitudinal axis, with the journal acting on the bearing arrangement with a basic radial action force aimed along a reference half-plane extending in a predetermined radial direction from the longitudinal axis, includes a pair of bearing pads situated at respective contact locations that are spaced in opposite circumferential directions from the reference half-plane. Each of the bearing pads extends substantially over the entire length, but at most only over a small fraction of the circumference, of the outer circumferential surface, such that the bearing pads are at most in a very limited area contact with the outer circumferential surface when the journal is supported thereon. The circumferential spacing of the contact locations is by respective half-angles that are so selected in dependence on the character of the OOR deviations as to at least minimize the extent of vibrations of the journal in and opposite to at least one of the predetermined radial direction and a radial direction normal to the half-plane.

Distributed load journal bearing

A commutator arrangement includes a commutator member rotatably mounted on a support and including a plurality of circumferentially adjacent contact pads that are mechanically connected with one another and electrically separated from each other by respective intervening gaps, and a number of commutator brushes that are mounted on the support for only substantially radial movements toward and away from the commutator member and are biased toward the latter to establish contact between their respective contact surfaces and those of the pads. The lateral edges bounding one kind of these contact surfaces circumferentially deviate from those delimiting the other contact surface kind over at least a part of their courses such that different portions of such lateral edges are juxtaposed with their counterparts at different times during the relative rotation of the commutator member.

Reduced noise commutator

An optical gauging system comprises a fixture for rotating a workpiece to provide registration of the workpiece surfaces with a measurement optical path and optical interference apparatus for reflecting a measurement optical beam off said surfaces to provide an optical interference signal indicative of the distance between successive surfaces.

Broad bandwidth interferometric gauging system

A combined holographic grating that samples a high energy laser beam and focuses the sample into a spot is formed by the cross-modulation term of a linear holographic grating and a holographic zone plate.

Method of forming laser diffraction grating for beam sampling device

The perimeter of an area is scanned along two adjacent paths which define spacially resolved gates through which objects and people must pass to enter and leave the area. As the gates are scanned, the presence of objects and people are detected. A complete scan produces a gate signature which includes information indicative of the presence and location of objects and people in each gate during the scan. Successive signatures are compared in sequence as scans are made in order to determine changes caused by movement of objects and people in or out of the area. From this comparison an up/down counter is controlled to maintain a dynamic count of the number of objects or people in the area following each scan of the gates. The counter counts up as objects and people enter the area and counts down as they leave.

People and object counting system

In accordance with the present invention, output beams from a plurality of optical amplifiers in an oscillator-amplifier optical configuration are phase matched utilizing a feedback system employing phase error signals generated by optically heterodyning a frequency shifted, two-wavelength reference beam, with a portion of the output from each of the plurality of amplifiers. Electrical signals from detectors responsive to the optical heterodyned signals are processed in control circuits to provide coarse and fine phase error signals to control elements for controlling the optical path difference of the beams of radiation passing through each of the amplifiers for phase matching the beams. Coarse error signals having a synthetic wavelength with an extended phase range of many wavelengths are generated by dividing the electrical signal from the detectors, homodyning the divided signals from each detector to provide a beat signal, passing the beat signal through a low-pass band filter centered at the frequency difference of the frequency shifted reference beams and heterodyning the filtered beat signals from two detectors. Fine error signals are generated by passing the divided electrical signal from each detector through a band-pass filter centered at the frequency of one of the frequency shifted reference beams and heterodyning the filtered signal from each detector with the filtered signal from a standard detector. The synthetic wavelength of the coarse error signal enables the control system to drive the optical path difference of the output beams toward zero with minimal 2.pi.N phase ambiguity.

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West Hartford, CT, United States of America

Francois M Mottier