The Torrington Company

Mark E LaCroix

A John Santos

Pascal Desbiolles

Michael C Brauer

Stephen T Podhajecki

Francis Travostino

John C Hanson

Stephen J Lyle

Systems and methods for extermination of ants may provide for the introduction of powder insecticide directly into an ant colony to deliver maximum saturation throughout the colony chambers or tunnels. Ants within the colony may track through the insecticide, and the insecticide may contaminate the ants' food source within the colony, thereby exterminating the ants with minimal disturbance to people or animals.

Systems and methods for extermination of ants

A bearing provided with an annular means generating magnetic pulses and with a device for detecting these pulses, wherein the detection device comprises a plurality of aligned sensitive elements. The sensitive elements are placed equidistantly from one another and the detection device comprises an even number 2N of sensitive elements.

Bearing equipped with magnetic encoder and sensor including aligned sensing elements

A sensor of position and/or of displacement of a moving member generating magnetic pulses. The sensor comprises a plurality of aligned sensitive elements that are divided into at least two subassemblies. The signals emanating from the subassemblies are processed by an electronic circuit able to deliver two analog signals in substantially perfect quadrature.

Position and/or displacement sensor including a plurality of aligned sensor elements

A drawn cup wheel bearing is mounted within an axle tube and supports an axle shaft mounted in the drawn cup wheel bearing with a vehicle mounting flange of the axle shaft positioned axially outwardly of the axle tube. An annular target is supported from the vehicle mounting flange of the axle shaft such that the target is positioned axially inwardly of the vehicle mounting flange and is positioned over the axle tube. A sensor is supported from the axle tube over the annular target for sensing rotation of the annular target.

Sensor system for sensing axle speed

The invention relates to a digital sensor of relative position, which has a circular multipolar magnetic ring which is mobile in rotation opposite a stationary magnetic sensor comprised of at least two sensitive elements, respectively positioned facing a main track and a &ldquo;revolution tick&rdquo; reference track, and a device for processing of the output signals, such that on the magnetic ring, a magnetic pattern is produced from a pair of north and south poles whose transition is different from the transition between the other north and south poles of the magnetic ring, and of which the angular width of the north pole is different at the site of the &ldquo;revolution tick&rdquo; reference track. The sensitive elements can be three in number, the first of which faces reference track and of which the other two face the main track, or they can be produced in the form of two parallel bars.

Digital sensor of relative position

A method for determining position and/or direction of a target, where the target has a series of magnetic poles with a magnetic pole spacing d. The method includes the steps of: (A) providing an array of an even number N of magnetic sensors with a sensor spacing x, the sensor array having an initial effective sensor array length (N&plus;1)x, where the initial effective sensor array length is greater than the pole spacing d; (B) deactivating an equal number of magnetic sensors such that the magnetic sensors of the array remaining active are adjacent to each other and provide a new effective sensor array length that is closer to the pole spacing d than the initial effective sensor array length; (C) dividing the magnetic sensors of the array remaining active into two equal groups A and B of at least one adjacent magnetic sensor for signal processing; (D) summing the signals from group A and summing the signals from group B; (E) adding the summation of signals from group B to the summation of signals from group A to obtain a sine wave; and (F) subtracting the summation of signals from group B from the summation of signals from group A to obtain a cosine wave.

Method of determining position and/or direction of a magnetic target

An outer ring has a spherically convex outer surface mounted within a bore of a housing such that the outer ring may be misaligned with respect to the axis of the bore. A sensor target is mounted on an inner ring that is rotatable with respect to the outer ring, and a seal is mounted on the outer ring. A sensor is mounted on the seal in proximity to the sensor target, and a flexible electrical conductor is connected to the sensor for transmitting signals from the sensor. A portion of the flexible electrical conductor is fixed with respect to the housing. Circuitry may be electrically connected to the flexible electrical conductor. The flexible conductor and circuitry may be provided by a flexible circuit board.

Housed bearing with integral sensor

A sensor senses a reference signal having a reference pulse characterizing angular position of a rotating member and an angular clock pulse characterizing the rotational speed of the rotating member and having an angular clock pulse frequency greater than the reference pulse frequency. An output signal is produced having an output pulse delayed with respect to the reference pulse of the reference signal by an integral number of angular clock pulses to provide a coarse adjustment. The output signal may be delayed by an additional fraction of a subsequent angular clock pulse to provide a fine adjustment. A circuit to effect this method is also disclosed.

Circuit and method for synchronizing a fuel pump or the like

Peak and valley voltages of signals from at least two analog sensors are held by the circuit. A plurality of threshold voltages is generated from the previous peak and valley voltages of the respective analog sensors. The signal of each sensor is compared to the respective threshold voltages to produce a sequences of output transitions for each sensor. The output transitions are combined such that each sequence of output transitions from each analog sensor occurs between sequences of the other analog sensor (or sensors). An optional peak and valley reset is also disclosed.

Growing community of inventors

New Hartford, CT, United States of America

Mark E LaCroix