Rockwell International Corporation

Sierracin Corporation

Other

Pacesetter Infusion, Ltd.

Alfred E. Mann Foundation for Scientific Research

Boeing North American, Inc.

Gordon W Culp

Clyde K Nason

Howard S DeCamp

David L Voss

Vaughn P Cable

Robert L Carman, Jr

The invention is a methods of connecting wire that is suitable to connect electrical devices implanted in a living body. The invention enables manipulation of a narrow wire and a crimping component that are on the order of a millimeter in size. The method utilizes a crimper having a slideably attached connector holder that moves relative to the crimper to position an open end of the crimp connector between the crimp die and the crimp anvil, and a slideably attached wire holder that allows the wire holder to be moved relative to the crimper to position a portion of the wire within the open end of the crimp connector. Small components are positioned with precision using a combination of the user's senses, not necessarily including vision. The method does not require stripping electrical insulation from the wires and is also useful for interconnection of miniaturized non-medical electrical devices.

Methods for connecting wires

A piezoelectric device or actuator (30) includes dimorph stack (32) attached to a support (34). Affixed to the apex of stack (32) is friction surface (36) which is held in contact with the external friction surface of a positionable object (38).

Piezoelectric actuator

This invention relates to a multiresonant actuator that moves an object with a minimum of rubbing contact thereby reducing to near zero the heat generated by rubbing contact and cutting the energy loss by this effect to near zero. The invention consists of a traveling wave actuator comprising a vibrator (4) having attached transducers (6a-c) fixed to a base. Traveling wave crests (44) are maintained in contact with a positionable object such as rotor (16) by a predetermined normal force. Traveling wave crests (54) passing along the vibrator (4) forcefully move the positionable object (16) by traction (52). Transducers are electrically segmented into groups. The components of each group are connected in electrical parallel but mechanical series. Groups of a transducer are connected in mechanical series. Each group is electromechanically sinusoidally resonated at a unique frequency, phase, and amplitude by a drive signal from a control means. The vibrator thereby propagates traveling waves that have a nonsinusoidal form. A predetermined wave form produces the least rubbing at the traction contact. The predetermined wave form is used in combination with the Fourier Theorem to prescribe the frequency, phase and amplitude of each transducer group. The vibrator nonsinusoidal wave form is the mechanical sum of sinusoidal constituents. The absence of rubbing proffered by nonsinusoidal traveling waves provides high mechanical efficiency. The use of resonance provides a high electrical efficiency, thereby providing a high actuator system efficiency. Embodiments of the device operate essentially cold, in vacuum without welding, and reliably, as there are few and benign modes of degradation therein.

Multiresonant actuator

The axially stiff link provides a rigid connection linking two shaft segments (1, 2) of a shaft such that it can bend and or twist yet remain rigid with no slop for high tolerance positioning applications. The link is composed of two rolling elements (4) attached to the shaft segments (1, 2) having a rolling line contact (10) with each other. The rolling elements (4) are held together and preloaded by a ring spring (6) which encircles a portion of the rolling element extending transversely from the shaft segment and engages it by rolling line contact (8). The rolling elements may be solid plain curved portions of the shaft ends, a cylindrical bar, cylindrical bar pairs, or conical pairs to provide for torsional as well as axial bending in the link. Closely spaced perpendicularly disposed axial links provide for 2 axis bending of the shaft.

Axially stiff link

The axially stiff link provides a rigid connection linking two shaft segments (1, 2) of a shaft such that it can bend and or twist yet remain rigid which no slop for high tolerance positioning applications. The link is composed of two rolling elements (4) attached to the shaft segments (1, 2) having a rolling line contact (10) with each other. The rolling elements (4) are held together and preloaded by a ring spring (6) which encircles a portion of the rolling element extending transversely from the shaft segment and engages it by rolling line contact (8). The rolling elements may be solid plain curved portions of the shaft ends, a cylindrical bar, cylindrical bar pairs, or conical pairs to provide for torsional as well as axial bending in the link. Closely spaced perpendicularly disposed axial links provide for two axis bending of the shaft.

This invention is for magnetic actuators which are composed of individually controlled layers. Each layer comprises a stationary sheet 34, a movable sheet 30 and a roller 40 between the sheets. Each layer may either have ribs 32 or sheet portions having conductors, remanent portions or permeable portions which apply a magnetic force against the roller to move the sheets. The magnetic force may be between a current carrying roller and a current carrying rib or sheet portion, a current carrying roller and a remanent rib or sheet portion, a current carrying roller and a permeable rib or sheet portion, a magnetic roller and a current carrying rib or sheet portion, or a permeable roller and a current carrying rib or sheet portion. The sheets in each layer may be moved in parallel or normal directions. When the layers are stacked, actuators may be made. The actuators can be controlled in pairs or larger groups to position and move objects and motor shafts. Thus motors generators and actuators can be made. By using Fourier mechanical summing of the layers smooth walking motion of the actuators can move and position objects and drive motor shafts with minimal frictional loss of energy and without the use of bearings or lubricants.

Magnetic actuator

A piezocellular force generating and acoustic interacting device comprising a multiplicity of electrodeformable membranes under semi-autonomous cellular control that directly converts electrical energy into fluid energy by membrane bending, directs thrust by concerted cell actions, and ameliorates friction by passively and actively complying with, and adding fluid to, a boundary layer. The device also provides useful passive and active acoustic fluid interactions.

Piezocellular propulsion

This invention is for a single lamina biaxial transducer-made of an electrodeformable material. Several methods form making biaxial transducers are taught. The biaxial transducer has responsivity vectors which are directed along radial lines from the axis and change in in intensity with distance from the axis so that when an electric field is applied the transducer will biaxially deform. The biaxial lamina can be stacked with a common electrode between them. Biaxers can be used for reducing stress between layers in bodies. They are also useful in deforming bodies and for making pumps.

Biaxial transducer

This invention is for an object moving actuator composed of a stack of independently controllable layers which convert thermal exobaric pulses into mechanical motion. Each layer can be a lifter for moving the stack normal to the object to be moved or a tangenter for moving the stack tangentially to the object. Each layer has a plurality of chambers having a heat source and a thermal expansive material contained therein. The heat source is controlled by a controller to generate a heat pulse which expands the thermal expansive material thereby moving a rolling barrier to make the layer move normally or tangentially. Preferably two pair of actuator stacks work together to alternately engage and move the object. The first pair makes contact with the object by lifter motion and moves the object by tangenter motion while the second pair is lifted off the object and retraces to get into position to contact and translate the object. When the actuator engages the object at the same speed the object is moving so that no frictional rubbing occurs, smooth walking motion is achieved.

Walking expansion actuator

The entropic echinoid 2 applies force to an object 6 with the cummulative effect of myriad feet 8 activated by fluid expansion pulses from electrical resistance heaters 30. Each heater lying in a fluid filed socket 10 of a substrate 4 and activated by a signal from a corresponding foot position sensing capacitor 26. The entropic echinoid is useful in high temperature environments for motors, actuators, bearings and clutches.

Entropic electrothermal actuator with walking feet

Tilters 2, are made of an electrotiltable material comprising an electroshearable material having a unidirectional gradient of responsivity, such as piezoelectric ceramic. Responsive to an activating electrical signal, tilters 2, tilt surfaces 26, with large side strain and negligible side stress. Forcible tilt provides forceful positioning of objects such as rollers, optical elements, and fluids. Tilting combined with a normal force of traction 16, forcefully moves a roller 12. Rollers pass tilting power to objects 14, in tractive contact such as a motor shaft 14. Alternating activation sense and tilting gradient 10 giving zero tilt at support surfaces 7, provide rigidity with negligible stress. Other embodiments use tilt to position optical elements, vary the flow resistance of fluid in a duct, and bunch charged particles. The actuator's tiltable surface 26 has an optical or acoustic element 52 attached for changing the angle at which radiation interacts with the element. A variant having tilt position sensors constitutes an accurate angular accelerometer.

Electrotiltable material (tilter)

An electronic system is provided for stimulating a segmented transducer with resonant electrical signals to produce a nonsinusoidal transducer output. In an illustrative embodiment, the transducer comprises a segmented piezoelectric actuator. The actuator comprises stacked piezoelectric dimorphs forming the actuator segments, each of which reacts electrically as a capacitance. Each segment (capacitance) is connected in a loop in electrical series with an external capacitor or a corresponding segment of a second actuator. An electrical controller stimulates each loop with a separate resonant electrical signal related to the others in frequency, phase, amplitude, and polarity. The resulting output of each actuator is the vector sum of the mechanical outputs of the individual dimorphs of that actuator. In an ideal resonant drive system for a segmented transducer, the only electrical energy used is that which is converted directly to mechanical work by the actuator. All other temporarily stored electric and elastic energy is recycled within the loops for high efficiency. When the electrical waveforms drive a pair of actuators, electrical charge oscillates between the actuators. Thus, loop currents flow between essentially lossless reactive components rather than through high-loss output devices.

Electrical drive for a segmented transducer

This invention relates to an actuator which changes its length without changing its width or breadth dimensions. Four shear electrodeformable bodies 4 are placed symmetrically on two faces of a central electrode 6. Each body also has a connecting electrode 8, attached to the electrodeformable body, thus forming a tetramorph which is the basic building block of the actuator. Each connecting electrode allows the tetramorphs to be attached to each other in layers and stacks to the desired dimensions of the actuator. Two of the electrodeformable bodies in the top half of the tetramorph are polarized to shear in one direction and the two electrodeformable bodies in the bottom half are polarized to shear in the opposite direction. If the shear in the electrodeformable bodies is up and down the tetramorph acts as a lifter. If the shear in the electrodeformable bodies is sideways the tetramorph is a tangenter or axier.

Anisotropic transducer

A multiplicity of heaters 50 on the surface 10 of a hollow torus chamber 4 are employed to exobarically stimulate the fluid contained in the chamber to make a resonant traveling wave 20 which has its high pressure peaks 22 adjacent outlet ports 16 and its negative pressure peaks 26 adjacent inlet ports 12, thus pumping the fluid. The traveling wave can be composed of two waves having a phase difference. A controller 62 directs the heaters to exobarically stimulate the fluid so as to create the traveling wave in the fluid. Heaters 50 can act as anemometers to detect the position of the waves in the chamber so that the controller may determine when to add pulses to the wave. By having a traveling wave which always has a high pressure peaks 22 adjacent to outlet ports 16 and its negative pressure peaks 26 adjacent inlet ports 16, no valves are required to make the pump function, thus eliminating any moving parts in the pump. Further, the pump can be made with materials which operate at high temperatures with dependence on curie temperatures, such as pumps having permanent magnets, magnetically permeable cores, piezoelectric materials and ferroelectric substances would encounter.

Madreporitic resonant pump

This invention relates to an injector in which fluid is injected into a reaction region 30 after pressurization and translation in traveling cells 20 between crests 46 of traveling waves of one or more waveplates 12 made of shear transducer material. Multiple phases of applied electrical stimulation cause electrical segments of the waveplate to form traveling waves by shearing in a predetermined sequence of amplitudes. Inlet wave amplitude taper 14 provides a prescribed state of inlet fluid acceleration. Outlet wave amplitude taper 18 predetermines the degree of mixing of two or more exiting fluids. Self filtering, valve action, high pressure, and high mass flow are provided with few and relatively benign modes of apparatus degradation due to friction. High system efficiency results from absence of rubbing and the recirculation of stored energy. The fluid delivery rate is smooth, continuous, and electrically variable. Balance of the mass flow rate of two or more fluids is electrically controlled.

Growing community of inventors

Van Nuys, CA, United States of America

Gordon W Culp