Other

Roho, Inc.

Design Engine

Agb Television Research

Kent Walker Mabey

Evan William Call

Thomas D Dickson

Robin Peng

Stephen L Richards

Robert R Runyon

Joseph M Boska

An immersion sensor for use with a cushion or mattress for determining the relative immersion of a person within the cushion or mattress including a sensor, a ground and a circuit for measuring capacitance. The sensor includes a sheet of conductive material, and the ground includes a second sheet of conductive material. The circuit is adapted to send short bursts of electrical current to the sensor and a capacitor. The circuit is further adapted to measure the length of time the burst of current takes to charge the capacitor. Based upon the measured time, the circuit calculates the proximity of the object based upon the time taken to charge the capacitor. A method that may be implemented with the immersion sensor is also disclosed.

Proximity sensor

A sensor for attachment to an inflatable air cell cushion to detect a change in immersion depth and bottoming out of the user seated on the cushion. The sensor includes an airflow conduit for attachment to the cushion inflation tube. The airflow conduit comprises a cylindrical body having a longitudinal inner bore. There is an opening through the conduit body in fluid communication with the bore. A transducer is positioned at the opening to detect changes in air pressure within the airflow conduit. The transducer is operatively connected to a warning light, an audible sensor and a mode set button. The functions of the electronic components are preprogrammed into a computer chip. A battery powers the sensor. The recited components are secured within a housing.

Valve mounted bottom out sensor

A touchless, digital electrical switch includes at least one sensor that is oriented or associated with other elements in such a way as to detect substantially vertical sweeping, or switching, motions. When an intended switching motion is sensed by the optical sensors within a predetermined period of time, loads are switched and the status of a switch is communicated to other switches, if any, along the same circuit (i.e., the 'position' of the switch is changed). An indication of the 'position' of the switch may be provided by way of a visual indicator. An acceptable switching motion may also result in an audible &#x201c;click&#x201d; or other signal.

Digital, touchless electrical switch

A multipurpose electric food mixing appliance specially adapted to mix and knead bread dough in combination with a blender device utilizes one power source to drive both the blender and the mixer. The appliance can sense when dough is properly kneaded and automatically shut itself off. The load on the appliance motor during kneading of the dough is monitored by monitoring the power supplied to such motor and the motor is stopped when the load on the motor begins to decrease after a period of increasing load. With an A.C. motor, the phase angle of power supplied to the motor while keeping the speed of the motor substantially constant is a measure of the load on the motor.

Multipurpose food mixing appliance specially adapted for kneading dough

A system and method for selecting one of a plurality of liquid supply receptacles as a source of supply for a liquid dispensing apparatus is disclosed. As liquid is withdrawn from the supply receptacle the dielectric constant of the liquid is sensed in order to detect any undissolved gases (i.e., bubbles) which are present in the liquid. The presence of bubbles within the liquid indicates that a supply receptacle has become empty or indicates a failure of components associated with one of the supply receptacles. Upon the detection of undissolved gases within the liquid withdrawn from a supply receptacle, the present invention causes another liquid supply receptacle to be selected as a source of supply for the liquid dispensing apparatus. Embodiments of the present invention desirably also include switches for manually inputting when a liquid supply receptacle has been refilled or replaced, indicators for visually showing the status of the system, and a remote annunciator for communicating the status of the system to a point remote from the liquid supply receptacles.

System and method for automatically selecting one of a plurality of

A system and methods are disclosed for monitoring a home TV viewing system which may include a TV, a VCR and one or more cable converters. The system obtains information for identifying the source of video displayed or being recorded, i.e., off-air antenna, satellite antenna, cable converter tuner, VCR, personal computer, video game, etc. The system also obtains information identifying the video path of the video being displayed and/or recorded. The system 'fingerprints' video recorded by the VCR so that the played back video may be identified as having been previously recorded. The system may record the date and time of recording and the video source of the video being recorded. The system includes probe/detector devices which obtain signals related to the frequency to which the TV, VCR, and cable converter are tuned, and a higher level processor which receives and processes those signals to identify channel tuning of the TV, VCR, and cable converter. The probe/detector monitoring the VCR includes a lower level processor and circuitry which fingerprint a video signal being recorded by the VCR. The system generates timing signals to record and detect fingerprints in the vertical blanking interval of the TV signal. The system has multi-level processing, and may be programmed to include a number of down-loadable and up-loadable parameters. The system also includes an alphanumeric display and data entry unit for each TV being monitored, and provides for interactive information entry by TV viewers including guests and by an installer.

Growing community of inventors

West Jordan, UT, United States of America

Kent Walker Mabey