Invensys Systems, Inc.

Loral Aerospace Corp.

Lockhead Martin Corp.

Kurt J Otto

Gregory Allen Roberts

Robert C Gardemal, Jr

Systems and methods for limiting heating to prevent explosions in a gaseous environment containing an industrial control system are described. A method may include controlling heating in an electrical circuit component in response to a circuit failure so as to avoid reaching a temperature at or above a flash point of a gaseous component of the gaseous environment.

System and method for limiting energy in an industrial control system

A system and method for limiting energy to an industrial control system is described. The method includes receiving a supply voltage, limiting the supply voltage so as to generate a limited voltage, and providing the limited voltage to a field transducer, the field transducer being disposed to monitor a parameter of the industrial process. A field current, that is generated in response to the limited voltage, is received from the field transducer and the field current is indicative of a magnitude of the parameter under normal operating conditions. During a fault condition, the field current is restricted with a variable resistance that is responsive to an amount of thermal energy generated during the fault condition so as to limit an amount of energy drawn by the control system.

A 12 bit to 8 bit dynamic range compression processor for compressing video data. The dynamic range compression processor uses a lookup RAM, or dynamic range compression RAM, to update offset and compression terms of each field of video in real time. During the active video period of each field, a 12 bit histogram of video pixel values is collected using a histogram RAM for a specific software defined local area of interest. During the video scan retrace time, the histogram is evaluated and offset and compression terms are computed based on upper and lower breakpoints of the histogram. An algorithm is employed to generate one of 3840 (15 integer and 3825 non-integer) compression slopes. Each compression slope is written into the dynamic range compression RAM starting at the computed offset value and is applied to the next field of video.

Local area linear dynamic range compression

A connectivity algorithm hardware implementation system wherein a subject pixel in a raster-scanned digitized image is declared a pixel of interest, in real time, by it being part of a potential target where every pixel on a closed pixel path enclosing the subject pixel differs in intensity from the intensity of the subject pixel by a predetermined intensity level, the system including a sequential delay line array producing a plurality of sequentially delayed digitized video signals representative of the spatial relationship of the pixels in the digitized image, these signals being coupled to a magnitude comparator array along with a delayed subject pixel contrast signal produced by a threshold circuit coupled to the subject pixel intensity causing the comparator array to produce a plurality of resultant signals representative of a comparison of the video signals with the subject pixel contrast signal, which resultant signals are coupled to a path checking circuit that simultaneously identifies all predetermined state closed paths around the subject pixel wherein every pixel on this closed path differs in intensity from an enclosed subject pixel by the predetermined intensity level.

Real time connectivity algorithm system

A nine bit Gray code counter is constructed as a single integrated circuit such as a PLA and comprises D flip-flops, AND gates and Exclusive-OR gates. The array is programmed to provide a nine bit Gray code count at its outputs. The Q output of each flip-flop provides one bit in the Gray code count. The D input to each flip-flop is determined by the significance of the bit and the following equations: D0=A XOR Q0; D1=(A.multidot.Q0) XOR Q1; Dn=(A.multidot. . . . .multidot.Qn-2.multidot.Qn--1) XOR Qn; and Dmsb=(A.multidot.Q0.multidot.Q1.multidot. . . . .multidot.Qmsb-2 XOR Qmsb.

Growing community of inventors

Laguna Beach, CA, United States of America

Kurt J Otto