International Business Machines Corporation

Glenmore Lorraine Shelton, Jr

Peter M Will

Sherman S Wang

Hugo A Panissidi

William J Fitzgerald

Robert Nolan Wolfe

George Arthur Folchi

A servo-control valve for a linear hydraulic motor wherein the control valve piston is isolated from the side loading of a cam and roller by employing a cam follower plunger, as a separate detached element coaxial with the piston. The valve piston and the cam follower plunger are maintained in intimate contact due to the constant back pressure applied by the hydraulic system. The plunger is encased in a cylindrical array of balls which are preloaded between the plunger and the piston chamber walls such that the plunger experiences essentially only rolling friction, but no sliding friction, as the plunger moves. This form of preloading of the balls eliminates the backlash associated with clearance around the plunger.

Servo-control valve for a linear hydraulic motor

By means of a suitable data entry device such as an electronic digitizing tablet or graph board, items of data respectively defining the original configuration of a roughly sketched object and the desired final proportions thereof are entered into a stored table called a 'pointing sequence list' (PSL), which is capable of storing all of the information required to define both the original form and the desired final configuration of the object. Initially the PSL contains positional entries representing the coordinates of definitive points on the roughly sketched object and dimensional entries specifying the proportions which the object is to have in its final delineation, all arranged in an order corresponding to a predefined pointing sequence which is followed by the operator when he enters the necessary items of graphic information into the system. The initial PSL subsequently is converted to a new PSL by a rectifying procedure which modifies the coordinates of the previously entered points where necessary in order to effect horizontal and vertical alinements of points which are supposed to be located on common axially directed lines. Whenever a coordinate is modified to effect an axial alinement (or in some instances a joinder) between two or more points during the rectification process, the respective entry which corresponds to the modified coordinate in the new PSL is provided with a 'pointer' to the PSL location storing the entry which specifies the referenced coordinate, thereby establishing an equivalence between these two entries. The linkages among equivalent entries are preserved during subsequent processing operations performed upon these entries, so that a change in one member of each set affects all of the other members thereof. The new PSL entries are then further modified where necessary in accordance with the proportions specified by the various dimensional entries, so that the PSL ultimately specifies the positions of points defining a rectified and proportioned version of the original rough sketch, thereby enabling a finished drawing or other final representation of the object to be produced from these PSL entries.

System for converting a rough sketch to a finished drawing

A six degree of freedom force transducer is provided on a manipulator's hand and includes a plurality of I-beam modules having strain gauges on the flat surfaces of the thin legs of each I-beam for measuring the bending moments of each leg. According to one embodiment, a pair of strain gauges are located on each side of the leg, providing a total of four gauges in each leg. The end bells of each I-beam are adapted to be rigidly interconnected with either other I-beams, structural members of the manipulator fingers, the drive member for the manipulator, or to intermediate coupling blocks designed to rigidly interconnect I-beams. A plurality of I-beams and interconnecting blocks can be connected in various configurations to provide a determination by the strain gauges of the six components of forces and moments which are applied by forces and moments on the fingers of the manipulator system. The I-beams and interconnecting blocks are arranged in x-y-z orthogonal directions such that the structural stiffness is in the same order in different directions. The moment at each basic module can be measured by the voltage output of a bridge associated with the strain gauges. In this fashion, a determination of the position and orientation of an object in the manipulator's hand can be readily provided by a computer which solves the force and moment equilibrium equations associated with the I-beam strain gauges.

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Carmel, NY, United States of America

Glenmore Lorraine Shelton, Jr