Rockwell International Corporation

Teledyne Licensing, LLC

Jonathan P Rode

Mohsen Khoshnevisan

Jeffrey S Schoenwald

Kuen Chow

Bruce G Kolloff

Steve Beccue

Raymond J Smith

A mobile device with a manually operated power source which generates power sufficient to operate the device when shaken by a user. A cable connected between the power source and mobile device carries the generated power from the power source to the mobile device such that the mobile device can be powered. The cable has a length sufficient to enable a user to hold the mobile device in one hand and the power source in the other hand such that the mobile device can be held stationary and used while the power source is simultaneously shaken. The mobile device and power source are preferably arranged such that they can be mechanically coupled together to form a single unit.

Mobile device with manually operated power source

An optical encoder for sensing angular position includes a rotatable optical medium having a major surface and an axis of rotation perpendicular to the surface, with a plurality of uniformly sized angular sectors defined on the surface. An annular absolute track is defined on the surface concentric with the axis, a plurality of digital bits being formed on the surface in sequence along the absolute track within each sector. Each such bit is optically readable as a binary 1 or a binary 0, with each plurality of bits defining a binary word. A first series of optically detectable incremental marks are evenly spaced around a first incremental track on the surface. The binary word in a sector is optically read to identify the angular position of that sector and indicate the approximate angular position of the medium, while the first series of incremental marks can be optically detected to refine the approximate angular position indication. A source of light illuminates the surface along a fixed radius from the axis, while a digital track detector senses the illumination reflected from the absolute bits and a first incremental track detector senses the illumination reflected from the incremental marks. Signal processing and decoding means convert the output of the absolute track detector into a binary word and interpolate the precise angular position of the medium from the output of the first incremental track detector. An input absolute track optical fiber is connected between a absolute track optical coupler and proximate the surface of the medium, while a first input incremental track optical fiber is connected between a first incremental track optical coupler and proximate the surface. Output absolute track and first incremental track optical fibers are connected between the couplers and the track detectors for conveying reflected light from the tracks to the detectors.

High resolution optical hybrid absolute incremental position encoder

Disclosed is a detector array for sensing electromagnetic radiation, which is based upon a semiconducting layer of a first conductivity type with an array of junction regions of a second conductivity type located in a major surface thereof. A first insulating layer is deposited over the major surface, and a plurality of conducting plates is disposed on the first insulating layer around each junction region. Each conducting plate creates an induced junction in the semiconducting layer upon the application of an electrical potential between the plate and the semiconducting layer. A second insulating layer is deposited over the plates and the first insulating layer, with a contact through the first and second insulating layers associated with each junction region. Each conducting plate is connected to a control line deposited over the second insulating layer for selectively applying the potential to that plate. A third insulating layer is deposited over the device, with an opening through that layer to each of the contacts.

Pre-multiplexed detector array

Disclosed is a hybrid Schottky barrier focal plane, which includes a transparent semiconducting detector substrate of a first conductivity, with an array of detector groups disposed on the detector substrate, each group including a plurality of Schottky barrier detectors. An output contact is provided on the detector substrate for each of the detector groups. A field effect transistor for each detector includes a source region of a second conductivity type in the detector substrate and connected to the detector, a drain region of the second conductivity type in the detector substrate over the source and drain regions for controlling the connection between the source region and the drain region. An array of output contacts are disposed on a semiconducting multiplexer substrate, which also includes a charge coupled circuit for converting parallel signals from the input contacts to a serial output signal. An array of coupling elements is provided to connect each of the output contacts on the detector substrate to one of the input contacts on the multiplexer substrate.

Pre-multiplexed Schottky barrier focal plane

Disclosed is a multielement staring infrared imaging system, including a focal plane array of detectors for responding to a scene, a CCD multiplexer for serializing the outputs of the detectors, a CCD driver for controlling the multiplexer, an analog to digital converter for digitizing the serialized outputs, a recursive filter for weighting the digitized outputs and combining the weighted outputs with previous weighted outputs to produce a correction output, an arithmetic unit for subtracting the correction output from the digitized output to compensate for the non-uniformity of each detector, a waveform generator for synchronizing the operation of the CCD driver, the analog to digital converter, and the offset correction unit, and an imager display for receiving the compensated output and displaying a corrected image of the scene. Non-uniformities in the elements of an infrared staring detector array are corrected by the steps of recording the outputs of the array at each readout time, element by element, combining the outputs recorded during a selected time interval, element by element, in a convolution integral to produce an averaged background response for each element, and subtracting the averaged response for each element from the most recent response for that element to correct for the non-uniformity of that element.

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Thousand Oaks, CA, United States of America

Jonathan P Rode