Sandia Corporation

The United States of America as Represented by the United States

James F Jones

Barry Louis Spletzer

Diane Schafer Callow

Michael A Kuehl

David R Strip

Brandon R Rohrer

James W Woods

Barbara J Scalia

Ben J Petterson

Scott E Rose

Thomas M Weber

Ronald W Greene

Brian A Kast

Dick L Shaw

Marc W Kniskern

A non-spinning projectile that is self-guided to a laser designated target and is configured to be fired from a small caliber smooth bore gun barrel has an optical sensor mounted in the nose of the projectile, a counterbalancing mass portion near the fore end of the projectile and a hollow tapered body mounted aft of the counterbalancing mass. Stabilizing strakes are mounted to and extend outward from the tapered body with control fins located at the aft end of the strakes. Guidance and control electronics and electromagnetic actuators for operating the control fins are located within the tapered body section. Output from the optical sensor is processed by the guidance and control electronics to produce command signals for the electromagnetic actuators. A guidance control algorithm incorporating non-proportional, 'bang-bang' control is used to steer the projectile to the target.

Small caliber guided projectile

An apparatus and method for cutting soft materials such as meat. Two or more spirally mounted helical blades are situated between two supports, and the supports are mounted to a shank. The shank is rotated to impart rotary action to the spiral shear blades, and the entire device may be used to perform various cutting operations. The distal or bottom one of the supports may also be a cutting blade, and a number of versions of bottom cutting blades are useable in the practice of the invention.

Apparatus and method for cutting soft materials, especially meat

An apparatus and method for locating the boundary surface between a layer of fatty tissue and lean tissue in a cut of meat, such as beef, such as slabs of meat undergoing trimming and cutting in commercial meet processing facilitates. The invention exploits the fact that fatty tissue and lean tissue have significantly different responses to incident light energy. By gauging the degree to which a generated beam of light is scattered and reflected by the tissues under evaluation, the invention permits the character of the tissue to be ascertained. An incident beam of light, such as green light, is generated and transmitted to a probe tip, which tip is inserted into the cut of meat under investigation. The light beam is emitted into the meat tissues from the probe tip, and then is scattered and reflected by the tissues, whereupon some fraction of the emitted light returns to the probe tip. The returning light energy is transmitted to a detector; relative changes in the returning light transmitted to the detector permit the operator to determine when the probe tip is approaching or penetrating the fat/lean tissue interface.

Optical probe for determining the fat/lean interface in cuts of meat

A payload suspended from a gantry is swing damped in accordance with a control algorithm based on the periodic motion of the suspended mass or by servoing on the forces induced by the suspended mass.

Methods of and system for swing damping movement of suspended objects

Growing community of inventors

Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

James F Jones