Active Control Experts, Inc.

Other

Cymer, Inc.

Jeffrey W Moore

Kenneth B Lazarus

Edward F Crawley

Farla M Russo

Robert N Jacques

Mark E Lundstrom

Jonathan C Allen

Emanuele Bianchini

Carl Prestia

Ronald Spangler

David Gilbert

David McAuley Alexander

Michael G Lannon

Gerald F Caron

Erik Saarmaa

Joshua J Roman

Douglas A Simpson

Eric J Marthinsen

Shoko Yoshikawa

James L Newman

Eric E Fitch

Eric Fitch

In general, a computing device disposed in a cardio exercise machine receives data related to a fitness level of a user. The computing device selects a workout program based at least in part on the data. The operations of the cardio exercise machine are controlled based at least in part on the workout program. The computing device generates visual feedback based on at least one of the user's operation of the cardio exercise machine and the selected workout program measured against performance criteria.

Cardio-based exercise systems with visual feedback on exercise programs

Described is a circuit arrangement for detection of a tone whose presence indicates insertion of a headphone plug into a jack. The circuit includes a receptacle having contacts configured to receive a plug inserted into the receptacle, a current sense circuit, an amplifier coupled to the current sense circuit and a band pass filter coupled to an output of the amplifier, the band pass filter configured to pass a signal having a frequency in a range of about 2 Hz to 20 Hz. Circuitry converts the passed signal into a digital signal to provide an input signal to a controller to indicate that a headphone plug was inserted into the receptacle.

Exercise system with headphone detection circuitry

A modular actuator assembly includes one or more plates or elements of electro-active material bonded to an electroded sheet, preferably by a structural polymer to form a card. The card is sealed, and may itself constitute a practical device, such as a vane, shaker, stirrer, lever, pusher or sonicator for direct contact with a solid or immersion in a fluid, or may be bonded by a stiff adhesive to make a surface-to-surface mechanical coupling with a solid workpiece, device, substrate machine or sample. The structural polymer provides a bending stiffness such that the thin plate does not deform to its breaking point, and a mechanical stiffness such that shear forces are efficiently coupled from the plate to the workpiece. In further embodiments, the card may include active circuit elements for switching, powering or processing signals, and/or passive circuit elements for filtering, matching or damping signals, so that few or no connections to outside circuitry are required. The actuator assembly can be manufactured in quantity, to provide a versatile actuator with uniform mechanical and actuation characteristics, that introduces negligible mass loading to the workpiece. The cards themselves may be arranged as independent mechanical actuators, rather tan strain-transfer actuators, in which the induced strain changes the position of the card. Various arrangements of pinned or cantilevered cards may act as a pusher, bender or other motive actuator, and structures such as powered bellows may be formed directly by folding one or more suitably patterned cards.

Packaged strain actuator

A golf club includes an electroactive assembly attached to the club and electrically tuned to capture energy from one or more vibrational modes with high efficiency. More generally, a sports implement includes an electroactive element, such as a piezoceramic sheet attached to the implement, and a circuit attached to the electroactive element. The circuit may be a shunt, or may include processing such as amplification and phase control to apply a driving signal which may compensate for strain sensed in the implement, or may simply alter the stiffness to affect performance. The electroactive element is located in a region of high strain to apply damping, and may include plural subassemblies mounted to capture energy in different planes, or to capture an asymmetric strain distribution while maintaining structural symmetry. In a ski the element captures between about one and five percent of the strain energy of the ski. The region of high strain may be found by modeling mechanics of the sports implement, or may be located by empirically mapping the strain distribution which occurs during use of the implement. In other embodiments, the electroactive elements may remove resonances, adapt performance to different situations, or enhance handling or comfort of the implement. Other embodiments include striking implements intended to hit a ball or object in play, such as mallets, bats and tennis racquets, wherein the strain elements may alter the performance, feel or comfort of the implement. The electroactive elements may be configured in sets to capture energy in different modes, and/or energy distributed along different directions.

Sports implement

A valve regulates fluid displacement in a damper assembly, for example, displacement of hydraulic fluid in a sealed shock absorber. The valve is placed between a portion of fluid at one pressure and regulates the passage of fluid through an aperture or passage to a portion of fluid at a lower pressure by a blocking member which moves to obstruct the aperture in accordance with a desired level of damping. The blocking member is, or is driven by, an electroactive device, such as a bimorph actuator formed of ferroelectric material.

Damper and valve

A modular actuator assembly includes one or more plates or elements of electro-active material bonded to an electroded sheet, preferably by a structural polymer to form a card. The card is sealed, and may itself constitute a practical device, such as a vane, shaker, stirrer, lever, pusher or sonicator for direct contact with a solid or immersion in a fluid, or may be bonded by a stiff adhesive to make a surface-to-surface mechanical coupling with a solid workpiece,device, substrate, machine or sample. The structural polymer provides a bending stiffness such that the thin plate does not deform to its breaking point, and a mechanical stiffness such that shear forces are efficiently coupled from the plate to the workpiece. In further embodiments, the card may include active circuit elements for switching, powering or processing signals, and/or passive circuit elements for filtering, matching or damping signals, so that few or no connections to outside circuitry are required. The actuator assembly can be manufactured in quantity, to provide a versatile actuator with uniform mechanical and actuation characteristics, that introduces negligible mass loading to the workpiece. The cards themselves may be arranged as independent mechanical actuators, rather than strain-transfer actuators, in which the induced strain changes the position of the card. Various arrangements of pinned or cantilevered cards may act as a pusher, bender or other motive actuator, and structures such as powered bellows may be formed directly by folding one or more suitably patterned cards.

A modular actuator assembly includes one or more plates or elements of electro-active material bonded to an electroded sheet, preferably by a structural polymer to form a card. The card is sealed, and may itself constitute a practical device, such as a vane, shaker, stirrer, lever, pusher or sonicator for direct contact with a solid or immersion in a fluid, or may be bonded by a stiff adhesive to make a surface-to-surface mechanical coupling with a solid workpiece, device, substrate machine or sample. The structural polymer provides a bending stiffness such that the thin plate does not deform to its breaking point, and a mechanical stiffness such that shear forces are efficiently coupled from the plate to the workpiece. In further embodiments, the card may include active circuit elements for switching, powering or processing signals, and/or passive circuit elements for filtering, matching or damping signals, so that few or no connections to outside circuitry are required. The actuator assembly can be manufactured in quantity, to provide a versatile actuator with uniform mechanical and actuation characteristics, that introduces negligible mass loading to the workpiece. The cards themselves may be arranged as independent mechanical actuators, rather than strain-transfer actuators, in which the induced strain changes the position of the card. Various arrangements of pinned or cantilevered cards may act as a pusher, bender or other motive actuator, and structures such as powered bellows may be formed directly by folding one or more suitably patterned cards.

A recreational board such as a snowboard incorporates strain transducers to damp a plate resonance of the board. The strain transducers are preferably located around a peripheral region to capture strain energy affecting control edges, for example steering control edges at the front and/or rear of the board. Electrical energy from the transducers is shunted to damp a targeted resonance. In a preferred embodiment the strain transducers cover a region of the snowboard adjacent one surface and extending along the forward periphery, preferably at both inside and outside edges, and are shunted with a resonant shunt tuned to a torsional or torsion-like mode of the board that is excited during steering maneuvers. The transducers may be fabricated as preassembled sheets or may be formed in the snowboard during the assembly process using sheets of piezoceramic material, or using piezo fiber or other composite constructions. The strain material may be positioned to preferentially shift or damp one resonance mode, and/or it may be arranged to exert a directional effect or anisotropic control authority. A passively operated embodiment employs a simple resistive shunt to enhance control of strain energy at the frequency of a resonant mode of the snowboard. Damping of that mode reduces chatter of the steering edges in use. The strain elements may be used in conjunction with viscoelastic or other damping mechanisms to tailor the overall level of mechanical control and limit the allowed excitations of the board.

Recreational snowboard

A hybrid actuator includes strain actuated elements that displace fluid to move a piston, with the elements forming a fluid housing, and being oriented and actuated to optimize force, stroke or bandwidth. In one preferred embodiment the elements are cylinders enclosing the fluid, with radial and axial components of strain-induced dimensional change adding together to enhance displacement. In another preferred embodiment, piezo bender elements produce large stroke, high bandwidth movements. Strokes of up to fifty percent of actuator length, and bandwidths above 500 Hz are achieved in light weight electrically actuated devices free of external piping or hydraulics. The actuator is readily integrated into a gate valve, sub-woofer, or other driven device.

High bandwidth, large stroke actuator

Golf club

A valve regulates fluid displacement in a damper assembly, for example, displacement of hydraulic fluid in a sealed shock absorber. The valve is placed between a portion of fluid at one pressure and regulates the passage of fluid through an aperture or passage to a portion of fluid at a lower pressure by a blocking member which moves to obstruct the aperture in accordance with a desired level of damping. The blocking member is, or is driven by, an electroactive device, such as a bimorph actuator formed of ferroelectric material. In one embodiment, the blocking member is a bimorph which covers the aperture, and is flexibly displaced by passage of pressurized fluid through the aperture. A controller provides an electrical actuation signal to move the bimorph toward or away from the aperture, augmenting or decreasing its closing bias to affect both the threshold flow initiation pressure and the rate of flow once the passage opens. Preferably the blocking member is a flexible piezoelectric assembly, which moves across a gap to provide a varying obstruction in the near field of fluid flow as the fluid moves through the passage. Piezobenders, washers and various pinned or cantilevered constructions of electroactive elements are adapted to different passage geometries. The valve assembly may be implemented in a plenum that attaches between chambers of a fluid housing, and include a first passage leading to one side, illustratively the high pressure side, of the damping piston, and a second passage connecting to the other, e.g., low pressure side of the piston. A piezo bender covers an elongated opening between the first and second passages and a controller moves the bender toward or away from the opening to reduce or increase flow. Preferably, a position sensor connected to the controller senses piston position, and the controller operates to energize the bender and to obstruct the opening or to further restrict flow if the piston position or its velocity is determined to lie above a threshold.

A sports implement includes an electroactive element such as a piezoceramic sheet attached to the implement and a shunt circuit attached to the electroactive element to counteract strain or alter stiffness of the implement to affect its performance. In a ski, one shunt circuit is neither a linear nor a highly tuned shunt, but is a low Q resonant inductive shunt tuned to a performance band of the ski to enhance dissipation of energy from of the electroactive element. The performance band includes at least one structural mode of the ski and a neighborhood of that mode. The neighborhood may include variations in the frequency of a first or higher free structural resonance which arise from production variations or size variations of the ski or its components. The neighborhood may also be selected to cover the range of frequencies that mode takes when driven by actual disturbances in use, such as the vibrations excited when skiing at a particular range of speeds, or with a particular set of conditions or combination of conditions of temperature, speed, snow and terrain. In other embodiments, the tuned band shunt control may be switched to remove a resonance, adapt performance to different situations, or enhance handling or comfort of the implement. Other embodiments include striking implements intended to hit a ball or object in play, such as golf clubs and tennis racquets, wherein the strain elements may alter the performance, feel or comfort of the implement.

Adaptive sports implement with tuned damping

A baseball bat includes an electroactive assembly attached near the handle and electrically tuned to capture energy from several modes with high efficiency. More generally, a sports implement includes an electroactive element, such as a piezoceramic sheet attached to the implement, and a circuit attached to the electroactive element. The circuit may be a shunt, or may include processing such as amplification and phase control to apply a driving signal which may compensate for strain sensed in the implement, or may simply alter the stiffness to affect performance. In a ski, the electroactive element is located near to the root in a region of high strain to apply damping, and the element captures between about one and five percent of the strain energy of the ski. The region of high strain may be found by modeling mechanics of the sports implement, or may be located by empirically mapping the strain distribution which occurs during use of the implement. In other embodiments, the electroactive elements may remove resonances, adapt performance to different situations, or enhance handling or comfort of the implement. Other embodiments include striking implements intended to hit a ball or object in play, such as mallets, golf clubs and tennis racquets, wherein the strain elements may alter the performance, feel or comfort of the implement. The electroactive elements may be configured in sets to capture energy in different modes, and/or along different directions.

Baseball hat

A modular actuator assembly includes one or more plates or elements of electro-active material bonded to an electroded sheet, preferably by a structural polymer to form a card. The card is sealed, and may itself constitute a practical device, such as a vane, shaker, stirrer, lever, pusher or sonicator for direct contact with a solid or immersion in a fluid, or may be bonded by a stiff adhesive to make a surface-to-surface mechanical coupling with a solid workpiece,device, substratesmachine or sample. The structural polymer provides a bending stiffness such that the thin plate does not deform to its breaking point, and a mechanical stiffness such that shear forces are efficiently coupled from the plate to the workpiece. In further embodiments, the card may include active circuit elements for switching, powering or processing signals, and/or passive circuit elements for filtering, matching or damping signals, so that few or no connections to outside circuitry are required. The actuator assembly can be manufactured in quantity, to provide a versatile actuator with uniform mechanical and actuation characteristics, that introduces negligible mass loading to the workpiece. The cards themselves may be arranged as independent mechanical actuators, rather than strain-transfer actuators, in which the induced strain changes the position of the card. Various arrangements of pinned or cantilevered cards may act as a pusher, bender or other motive actuator, and structures such as powered bellows may be formed directly by folding one or more suitably patterned cards.

Growing community of inventors

Arlington, MA, United States of America

Jeffrey W Moore