The Boeing Company

Aerostar International, Inc.

Novariant, Inc.

Michael Eglington

Michael Lee O'Connor

Gregory M Gutt

David Arthur Whelan

David G Lawrence

Matthew Aaron Knoll

Per Kristian Enge

Glen Alan Sapilewski

Lars G Leckie

Jacques L Gagne

Sameera Sylvia Ponda

Daniel Alex Luebke

Jonathan Nutzmann

Aaron Fan

Ewout Van Bekkum

Robert W Brumley

Christopher J Martens

Anne T Haddad

Rachel Rané Schmalzried

Qinghe Chang

Brian G Walter

Michael L O′Connor

Robert C Melhorn, Jr

Aspects of the disclosure provide for controlling orientation of a payload of a balloon through a despin mechanism. In one instance, a system may include a flexible coupling configured to reduce effects of a balloon envelope tilting on a payload, a sensor configured to measure rotational displacement of the flexible coupling, a despin mechanism including a motor configured to rotate the payload, and a controller. The controller may be configured to use receive the measured rotational displacement and to use the despin mechanism to rotate the payload towards a preferred orientation based on the measured rotational displacement.

Torque control for balloon coupling

Aspects of the technology relate to propulsion systems for high altitude, long duration balloons, such as balloons that operate in the stratosphere for weeks, months or longer. A propeller assembly is used to provide lateral directional adjustments, which allows the balloon to spend more time over a desired region, reduce the return time to the desired region, reduce fleet overprovisioning, and increases the safety case by additional controls and avoidance abilities. A control assembly manages operation of the propeller assembly, including setting the pointing direction, speed of rotation and determining when to turn on the propeller and for how long. The propulsion system including the control and propeller assemblies is rotatable around a connection member of the balloon. Such rotation is independently adjustable from any rotation of the balloon's payload. The propeller blades may be made of plastic, which reduces weight and cost while providing sufficient speed at stratospheric altitudes.

Lateral propulsion systems and architectures for high altitude balloons

A system and methods for location authentication are presented. An estimated server signal is estimated based on a generated known code signal, and a client received satellite signal is received from a client device. The client received satellite signal is compared to the estimated server signal to provide a comparison result.

Server algorithms to improve space based authentication

A method and system are disclosed for providing an estimate of a location of a user receiver device. The method and system involve emitting from at least one vehicle at least one spot beam on Earth, and receiving with the user receiver device a signal from at least one spot beam. In one or more embodiments, at least one vehicle may be a satellite and/or a pseudolite. The method and system further involve calculating with the user receiver device the estimate of the location of the user receiver device according to the user receiver device's location within at least one spot beam. In some embodiments, when the user receiver device receives signals from at least two spot beams, the user receiver device calculates the estimate of the location of the user receiver device to be located in the center of the intersection of at least two spot beams.

Geolocation leveraging spot beam overlap

A system and methods for time and/or location authentication are presented. A hash value is received from a client device and a hash value receiving time of the received hash value is stored. A data block is received after receiving the hash value is received, the received data block comprising alleged transmission signal data. A computed hash value of the received data block is computed, and an estimated transmission signal client receiving time by the client is calculated based on the alleged transmission signal data. A timely possession of the received data block by the client device is authenticated based on a comparison of the computed hash value to the received hash value and a comparison of the hash value receiving time to the estimated transmission signal client receiving time.

System and method for improved geothentication based on a hash function

A system and method provide for precision guiding of agricultural vehicles along a series of adjacent paths to form rows for cultivating a field. In one aspect of the invention the vehicle is moved along a first path while receiving positioning information from a navigational system (e.g., RTK GPS). This positioning information is stored in a processor and is used by the processor to compute a second path adjacent to said first path by calculating piecewise perpendicular offsets from the first path at multiple locations along the first path. The process is repeated to compute a third and subsequent paths so as to cover the field. Because of the offset process, the field may be covered with paths that have varying curvature along their length, while providing substantially no gaps or overlaps in the coverage of the field. In another aspect of the invention, the system may propose alternative paths and the user can intervene by steering the vehicle or using a graphical user interface to select among the alternative paths. A still further aspect of the invention allows for the recording of the paths that provide coverage of a field in the form of a template. This template can then be used to cause the vehicle to automatically steer along a previously calculated path in subsequent operations on the field, and in subsequent years.

System and method for interactive selection and determination of agricultural vehicle guide paths offset from each other with varying curvature along their length

System and method for interactive selection of agricultural vehicle guide paths through a graphical user interface other than moving the vehicle

A vehicle control system with user-guided calibration is presented. In one embodiment, a vehicle control system is presented comprising an output device and circuitry operative to provide an output, via the output device, that guides a user through a plurality of calibration steps in a particular order. The circuitry can additionally or alternatively be operative to determine which of the calibration steps, if any, to present as a next calibration step based on whether a given calibration step is successful. Other embodiments are provided, and each of the embodiments can be used alone or in combination with one another.

Vehicle control system with user-guided calibration

Growing community of inventors

San Bruno, CA, United States of America

Michael Eglington