General Electric Company

Howard Leroy Lester

John Erik Hershey

Amer A Hassan

Gerald Burt Kliman

William James Premerlani

Sandeep Chennakeshu

John Stanley Glaser

John Raymond Krahn

Charles McDonald Puckette, Iv

John Anderson Ross

A radio frequency (RF) or other form of detector detects discharges of an insulated system which can occur when electrical insulation becomes wet, for subsequent analysis and decision processes. Additionally, for RF detection, a frequency selector can be used to select a &ldquo;quiet&rdquo; region of the discharge spectrum before demodulation and further analysis and decision. Finally, redundant sets of such filters avoid the need to continuously reconfigure the detection system.

System and apparatus for predicting failure in insulated systems

High frequency (HF) antennas for wideband signals are used in the tracking of railcars. These are rugged antennas especially adapted to the hostile environment of a railcar. One antenna is in the form of a magnetic loop. Another generates an electric field produced by a plate mounted just below the railcar undercarriage with an optional dielectric slab situated between the plate and the undercarriage. The antennas need not be specified in terms of optimal parameters since the approach taken is to provide a generic antenna structure adapted to being fitted underneath the carriage of a railcar. This generic structure exhibits a mitigated Q and is capable of broadband tuning. This feature makes the antenna easier and less costly to produce in large quantities and facilitates use of a standard fitting mechanism and installation procedure.

HF antennas for wideband signals

An asymmetrical (inbound only) high frequency communication system for asset tracking is made up of a message preparation and transmitter subsystem, a receiving subsystem, and a system monitoring subsystem. A transmission channel is selected randomly or pseudorandomly. Prior to each transmission, the transmitter performs a radiometric measurement of a selected channel. If the measurement exceeds a predetermined threshold, transmission in the selected channel is canceled and another channel is selected. The transmission protocol achieves frequency diversity by sequentially transmitting a message on a plurality of different channels. The receiving subsystem has a plurality of spatially separated receiver sites at various geographical points, thereby providing spatial diversity. The receiver sites are linked to a common processing center. Onboard the asset and collocated with the transmitter, a system monitoring subsystem records and stores parameters related to the message preparation and transmitter subsystem. These parameters are useful in assessing efficacy of transmission frequency planning algorithms and the transmission protocol.

Inbound messaging transmission device and system for railcar asset

A highly fault tolerant method of radio communication of information in the form of a message packet employs a distributed network of transmitter/receivers `transceivers` each having a unique identification ('ID') number. An initiating transceiver creates a message packet having the ID of a transceiver intended to receive the message packet. It then broadcasts the message packet to transceivers within its transmission range. Each transceiver which receives the message packet checks to see if there are errors and sends an acknowledgement if no errors. The transceivers determine valid message packets by determining if the message has not expired, if it has not been seen before and there were no errors in the received message packet. The transceiver also determines if the transceiver ID in the message packet match its own transceiver ID, and if it does, is the message has been successfully transmitted to its intended transceiver. If the message packet is valid and the transceiver IDs do not match, the transceiver broadcasts the message to other local transceivers until a predetermined number of acknowledgements are received, or until the message expires. The transceivers which receive the message packet repeat the process.

Mobile telecommunications device and service

A digital simulcast transmission is automatically aligned, at a simulcast receiver (22) that simultaneously receives a plurality of RF signals from a plurality of transmitters, each of the RF signals being modulated to convey identical digitally encoded information. An equalizer (24) adaptively equalizes the plurality of received RF signals to substantially correct for a misalignment in time between the received signals. The misalignment in time is due in part to a non-simultaneous transmission of the identical digitally encoded information from the plurality of transmitters. Equalizer embodiments include a Decision Feedback Equalizer (DFE) and an equalizer based on a Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimator (MLSE). Embodiments of the DFE are an Order Recursive Lattice-DFE and a Fast Kalman DFE.

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Alplaus, NY, United States of America

Howard Leroy Lester