Onset Computer Corporation

Lon O Hocker

A system and method for measuring resistance of a polarizing material are disclosed. The system includes a voltage divider circuit having a first resistive element of known resistance and the polarizing material of unknown resistance and a processing unit. The processing unit is electrically-coupled to the voltage divider circuit and adapted to apply a voltage across the voltage divider circuit. A first input/output (I/O) pin is electrically-coupled between the processing unit and the first resistive element. A second pin is electrically-coupled between the processing unit and a junction between the polarizing material and the first resistive element. A controller is adapted to cause the second pin to short the polarizing material after a measurement is completed, to bleed off any residual polarization from the capacitive element of the polarizing material.

Pulsed methods and systems for measuring the resistance of polarizing materials

A phase shift oscillator circuit having a delay line in a feedback loop is employed to determine soil moisture content and water level. The delay line is connected to the oscillator such that the dielectric value of the medium inside the delay line influences the frequency of the oscillator circuit. The delay line is placed in the medium to be studied. Soil moisture content and water level are calculated as a function of the frequency of the oscillator output, and changes in soil moisture content or water level are calculated as a function of changes in oscillator frequency over time. An elongated delay line is employed to measure water level.

Sensing water and moisture using a delay line

A UART protocol which takes advantage of an SDO line space state to optimize communication between computers. A delay is provided by sending a byte of actual data followed by a dummy byte. The dummy byte is produced by placing the SDO line in the mark state, thus freeing up CPU time.

UART protocol that provides predictable delay for communication between

A contact closure data logger which monitors state changes in a main switch, and records the time at which the state changes occur. To conserve power and accommodate less capable microprocessors, monitoring is done on a discreet basis. Various types of switches can be used, such as reed switches, FETs and mechanical switches, making the logger particularly useful for energy usage monitoring studies and retrofit of tipping bucket rain gauges. Dependent switches and measurement devices can be arranged in a hierarchical fashion to be monitored and otherwise acted upon when state changes occur in the main switch.

Contact closure data logger

A resistive soil moisture sensor which is implanted in the soil includes a temperature sensitive component, located at the same soil depth as the sensor. The thermistor is part of a thermistor network which includes other components which are located above ground. The resultant sensor automatically compensates for temperature variations, and is well suited for use with data loggers and automatic control systems.

Temperature compensated soil moisture sensor

A data gathering computer and host data display computer interface system, methodology and protocol are described that utilize a shared control program. The data gathering computer uses this program to determine what measurements are to be made and when and how the data is to be compressed into its data storage. The host display and analysis computer receives and utilizes the control program and the stored data from the data gathering computer, and expands the stored data responsive to the control program, and reconstructs the value and engineering units of the values measured as well as the time that the measurements were made. By passing the control program gathered by the data gathering computer, a single display computer program is all that is needed to display any number of completely different data streams from any number of data gathering computers.

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Falmouth, MA, United States of America

Lon O Hocker