United States of America As Represented by the Administrator of Nasa

Stanley O Starr

Pedro J Medelius

Robert C Youngquist

Anthony Eckhoff

Jan A Zysko

Richard T Deyoe

Christopher D Immer

A two-dimensional inductive position sensing system uses four drive inductors arranged at the vertices of a parallelogram and a sensing inductor positioned within the parallelogram. The sensing inductor is movable within the parallelogram and relative to the drive inductors. A first oscillating current at a first frequency is supplied to a first pair of the drive inductors located at ends of a first diagonal of the parallelogram. A second oscillating current at a second frequency is supplied to a second pair of the drive inductors located at ends of a second diagonal of the parallelogram. As a result, the sensing inductor generates a first output voltage at the first frequency and a second output voltage at the second frequency. A processor determines a position of the sensing inductor relative to the drive inductors using the first output voltage and the second output voltage.

Two-dimensional inductive position sensing system

A device and procedure for checking the health of a pressure transducer in situ is provided. The procedure includes measuring a fixed change in pressure above ambient pressure and a fixed change in pressure below ambient pressure. This is done by first sealing an enclosed volume around the transducer with a valve. A piston inside the sealed volume is then driven forward, compressing the enclosed gas, thereby increasing the pressure. A fixed pressure below ambient pressure is obtained by opening the valve, driving the piston forward, sealing the valve, and then retracting the piston. The output of the pressure transducer is recorded for both the overpressuring and the underpressuring. By comparing this data with data taken during a preoperative calibration, the health of the transducer is determined from the linearity, the hysteresis, and the repeatability of its output. The further addition of a thermometer allows constant offset error in the transducer output to be determined.

Thermodynamic pressure/temperature transducer health check

An embodiment of the present invention uses a single detection system to approximate a location of lightning strikes. This system is triggered by a broadband RF detector and measures a time until the arrival of a leading edge of the thunder acoustic pulse. This time difference is used to determine a slant range R from the detector to the closest approach of the lightning. The azimuth and elevation are determined by an array of acoustic sensors. The leading edge of the thunder waveform is cross-correlated between the various acoustic sensors in the array to determine the difference in time of arrival, &Dgr;T. A set of &Dgr;T's is used to determine the direction of arrival, AZ and EL. The three estimated variables (R, AZ, EL) are used to locate a probable point of the lightning strike.

Single station system and method of locating lightning strikes

A system and method of determining locations of lightning strikes has been described. The system includes multiple receivers located around an area of interest, such as a space center or airport. Each receiver monitors both sound and electric fields. The detection of an electric field pulse and a sound wave are used to calculate an area around each receiver in which the lighting is detected. A processor is coupled to the receivers to accurately determine the location of the lighting strike. The processor can manipulate the receiver data to compensate for environmental variables such as wind, temperature, and humidity. Further, each receiver processor can discriminate between distant and local lightning strikes.

System and method of locating lightning strikes

A wind velocity measurement system employs two different principles of physics to measure wind speed: (1) the aerodynamic force imparted to a low profile, rigidly mounted cylindrical rod, and (2) the vibrating frequency of the rod as vortices are shed from the rod's cylindrical surface. A set of strain gages is used as a common sensor for both measurements, and these provide force measurements imparted by the wind on the rod. The signals generated by the strain gages are fed to processing circuitry that calculates the wind speed and direction from the signals. The force measurement is proportional to the square of the wind speed. Since it is a vector quantity, it can also be used to derive wind direction. The vortex shedding frequency is a scalar quantity and is linearly proportional to wind speed. This frequency can be calculated by analyzing the force measurements generated by the strain gages over time. Both of the wind velocity calculations can be advantageously used by the processing circuitry to generate an accurate wind velocity reading.

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Indialantic, FL, United States of America

Stanley O Starr