United Technologies Corporation

Glenn C Waehner

Michael H Kalmanash

Leonard A Messman

Thomas J Ray

Harold C Wooding, Jr

Each orthogonal driver channel for the magnet deflection yoke of a conventional CRT includes a simple bifilar wound transformer which is connected so that the deflection current waveform passes therethrough. The transformer effectively minimizes the inherent parasitic capacitance between the two windings of the magnetic deflection yoke as it affects a high frequency input signal presented to the input terminal of the high gain operational amplifier. However, the impedance introduced within the feedback loop of the operational amplifier is minimal with respect to an input signal to either driver channel, and thus no significant distortion is presented to the current waveform driving each winding.

Isolation transformer for a magnetic deflection yoke

A deflection waveform generator uses a low voltage accurate capacitor to integrate the yoke deflection current and derive a parabolic waveform for 'S' correcting the basic sawtooth deflection waveform. This parabolic waveform is fed back to the inverting input of a balanced operational integrating amplifier, the inverting input also having the integrating network coupled thereto. The polarities of the signal waveforms at the inverting input are such that the combined signal fed through the integrating network creates a 'S' corrected sawtooth yoke deflection current which drives the electron beam in a manner which compensates geometric distortion inherent in the CRT.

Deflection waveform generator

A high speed driver circuit for the magnetic deflection yoke of an orthogonal channel displaying high speed alphanumeric characters, or the like, includes a first input receiving a stored signal proportional to the derivative of the vector slope component and a second input receiving a positive feedback from the yoke sense resistor. At high frequencies the yoke current is primarily inductive so that the voltage across the yoke is proportional to the rate of change of current through the yoke, hence, this voltage, when properly connected by positive feedback, is also proportional to the derivative of the voltage across the magnetic deflection yoke. By combining this voltage waveform directly within the vector slope signal, the need for an active integrator in the closed loop driving the magnetic deflection yoke is eliminated.

Direct integration yoke driver for a high speed alphanumeric display

A regulated power supply for a CRT has an amplifier connected to the output of the high voltage power supply for sensing variations in the operating potential supplied to the CRT anode. The amplifier allows a double acting response to voltage fluctuations in this high voltage operating level supplied to the CRT anode which causes a directly adding voltage to feedback from the intermediate voltage power supply and also unloads the intermediate voltage power supply.

Regulated CRT power supply

A non-interlaced video camera has twenty four light pipes orthogonally terminated at its field of view, each light pipe having a lens at its distal end focused at a spot on one of a plurality of spinning, labeled bottles. For each of the spinning bottles, the vidicon camera output is quantized, stored, and compared repetitively, over successive cycles, with an 8-bit pattern of four digital 'dark' bits followed by four digital 'white' bits, a match indicating that a label edge has passed a sensing station several cycles previously so that the bottle may be stopped in a desired position following a settable delay. Video threshold and successive samplings ensure integrity of stored data; processing hardware is time shared; digital timing synchronizes processing with the vidicon camera; and a cursor aids initial alignment. Data which changes modulo 192 is stored in a preloaded memory (RAM) modulo 193, advancing data in each cycle group in a caterpillar fashion, in a last-in/first-out basis. As to each bottle during each cycle, the reading in of new data is instantaneously followed by read out of such new data along with data acquired in seven previous cycles corresponding to seven previous incremental angular displacements of the bottle as it is turning. In a second embodiment, photodetectors replace the light pipes and vidicon camera; a serial memory replaces the RAM; and label patterns are sensed, with optional 'don't care' bits.

Labeled container orientation processor

A non-interlaced video camera has twenty four light pipes orthogonally terminated at its field of view, each light pipe having a lens at its distal end focused at a spot on one of a plurality of spinning, labeled bottles. For each of the spinning bottles, the vidicon camera output is quantized, stored, and compared repetitively, over successive cycles, with an eight-bit pattern of four digital 'dark' bits followed by four digital 'white' bits, a match indicating that a label edge has passed a sensing station several cycles previously so that the bottle may be stopped in a desired position following a settable delay. Video threshold and successive samplings ensure integrity of stored data; processing hardware is time shared; digital timing synchronizes processing with the vidicon camera; and a cursor aids initial alignment. Data which changes modulo 192 is stored in a preloaded memory (RAM) modulo 193, advancing data in each cycle group in a caterpillar fashion, in a last-in/first-out basis. As to each bottle during each cycle, the reading in of new data is instantaneously followed by read out of such new data along with data acquired in seven previous cycles corresponding to seven previous incremental angular displacements of the bottle as it is turning. In a second embodiment, photodetectors replace the light pipes and vidicon camera; a serial memory replaces the RAM; and label patterns are sensed, with optional 'don't care' bits.

Labeled container orientation sensing system

Elimination of an inverting amplifier and a video switch, which provide selective polarity reversal to permit usage of unipolar A/D conversion in prior art bipolar A/D converters, for improved economy and performance, is achieved by usage of two comparators, one for comparing positive input signals and one for comparing negative input signals, the output of one of the comparators, at any one time, providing the input to unipolar A/D converter successive approximation logic, and establishing the sign of the result.

Bipolar A/D converter using two comparators

The phosphor screen of a cathode ray tube (CRT) has its phosphor coating protected against damage caused by a stationary or low sweep velocity electron beam that strikes its surface, by removal of the video signal that controls the beam whenever there is a simultaneous presence of video signal and absence of a proper horizontal or vertical sweep signal.

Cathode ray tube phosphor protection circuit

A regulated current source including a large inductance provides desired, average DC current by modulation of an electron switch, such that the inductance is disconnected from the power supply on a regular basis by a clock circuit, and the switch reconnects the power supply when the current in a return path to the inductor has decayed to a desired magnitude. The desired decay current across a resistor is compared with a reference which turns the switch on in the absence of the turn-off signal from a clock. As an energy saving adjunct in a deflection amplifier system for a CRT, a bipolar embodiment employing a single large inductance and duplicate other apparatus provides a regulated current of either polarity or zero magnitude, the inductor current being maintained even when providing zero current with the deflection system.

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Riverside, CT, United States of America

Glenn C Waehner