International Business Machines Corporation

Mako Surgical Corporation

Stephen Eugene Still

Ray Garcia

Kendall A Honeycutt

Renbin Zhou

James J Tout, Jr

Will Eugene Hamel

Neal William Horner

Warren F Huber

Ira Baker

A tool and method for operating the tool are provided. The tool includes a housing and a power generator, such as a motor, disposed in the housing. The power generator has an operating parameter, such as rotational speed. A trigger member and associated magnet are displaceable relative to the housing. A plurality of sensors each generate an output signal based on movement of the magnet. A controller receives the output signals from the sensors, determines a base digital integer from each of the output signals, concatenates the base digital integers to form a concatenated digital integer. The controller varies the operating parameter based on the concatenated digital integer.

Tool and method for controlling the same

A method for correcting an error of a nonvolatile memory of an embedded component for an end effector used in a robotic surgical system is provided. The robotic surgical system includes a host controller in communication with the embedded component. The embedded component of the end effector performs a test process to test the nonvolatile memory. The host controller of the robotic surgical system requests a result of the test process from the embedded component of the end effector. The host controller determines that the error of the nonvolatile memory has occurred after requesting the result of the test process from the embedded component of the end effector. The host controller modifies the nonvolatile memory of the embedded component of the end effector to correct the error.

Techniques for correcting an error in a nonvolatile memory of an embedded component for an end effector in a robotic surgical system

Apparatus for providing electrical power to a processor (CPU) within a computing system includes a fixed-voltage power supply and a programmable power supply. When the computing system is turned on, a switching circuit determines whether the processor is a unified voltage plane type, having a first particular pin electrically floating, or a split voltage plane type, having this pin grounded. In either case, the output of the programmable power supply is applied to the pins associated with the core voltage plane of a split voltage plane type. If the processor is a unified voltage plane type, the switching circuit applies the output of the programmable power supply to the pins associated with the I/O voltage plane of a split voltage plane type. If it is of a split voltage plane type, the switching circuit applies the output of the fixed-voltage power supply to an I/O voltage plane of the processor, with the programmable power supply being first set to generate a voltage determined by whether a second grounded pin is present in the processor. Then, an instruction in an initialization program causes the processor having a split voltage plane to transmit an identification code, which is used to determine a final level of the programmable power supply voltage.

Automatic voltage regulation for processors having different voltage requirements and unified or split voltage planes

Apparatus for monitoring fan speeds within a computing system includes a tachometer turning with the fan, providing a tachometer signal including a number of pulses during each revolution of the fan. This tachometer signal is provided as an input to a signal generator in the form of a flip-flop, which generates a square-wave signal having transitions between high and low levels corresponding to tachometer signal pulses. The square-wave signals are provided as inputs to separate input ports of a microprocessor. These input ports are sequentially sampled at a rate providing at least two samples per period of the fastest square-wave signal, so that transitions of each square wave signal during a predetermined time interval can be detected and counted. For each input port, the number of counted transitions is compared to a stored acceptable value to establish whether the fan is operating in an acceptable speed range.

Apparatus and method for monitoring fan speeds within a computing system

A computer system includes a system bus, peripheral devices, bus control logic having bus control lines for bus master operation, and an allocation control circuit. The allocation control circuit is connected to at least one of the bus control lines and at least two of the peripheral devices. The connected bus control line is coupled to one of the connected peripheral devices by the allocation unit so that the one connected peripheral device can operate as a bus master on the system bus. In a preferred embodiment, the allocation control circuit includes switches that are controlled by the system software. Also provided is a method of allocating bus master control lines to peripheral devices. According to the method, the bus master control lines and the peripheral devices are connected to an allocation unit. It is determined which peripheral devices to connect to which bus master control lines, and the allocation unit is directed to couple each bus master control line to one of the peripheral devices so that the selected peripheral devices can operate as bus masters. In a preferred method, the determination is based on user preferences and/or system-detected peripheral devices, and the system software controls the allocation unit.

Dynamic allocation of bus master control lines to peripheral devices

A method for monitoring the operating temperature of a semiconductor device. The method comprising the steps of: placing a thermal coupling material between the bottom of the semiconductor device and the top of a printed circuit board for inserting the device thereinto; inserting a sensor so to be at least partially covered by the thermal coupling material; and measuring the temperature from the sensor within a predetermined time interval. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, an apparatus is described to carry out the above process.

Thermal monitoring system for semiconductor devices

A method and apparatus to automatically select operating voltages for a device. The method comprising the steps of: connecting a variable resistive network in series to a first side of a resistor for varying the current through the resistor; charging an inductor with a modulate pulse train, the inductor being connected to the second side of the resistor; outputting a voltage equal to the voltage across the resistor and a fixed reference voltage located at the first side of the resistor; determining if at least one designated processor pin is connected to ground; and varying the resistance of the resistive network if at least one pin is connected to ground so as to change the current flowing through the resistor, thereby changing the voltage across it.

Method and apparatus to automatically select operating voltages for a

A multiple-input, mixed-type bar code processor, comprising: a plurality of retriggerable pulse generators, each having data inputs coupled to sources of potential representing fixed logic levels and each having at least one of a clear and a reset input coupled to a different one of a plurality of sources of input bar code data streams, for regenerating the input bar code data streams responsive to logic level transitions of the input bar code data streams, both when any input bar code data stream is logically low absent scanned data and when any other input bar code data stream is logically high absent the scanned data; a circuit for receiving all of the regenerated bar code data streams and generating a single output bar code data stream; and, a bar code data stream decoder coupled for receiving the single output bar code data stream. A method for processing multiple-input, mixed-type bar codes comprises the steps of: independently generating retriggerable pulses responsive to different ones of a plurality of input bar code data streams, at least one of which is logically low absent scanned data and at least one other of which is logically high absent scanned data; generating the retriggerable pulses with a width greater than a maximum time interval between logic level transitions within any of group of pulses in the bar code data streams corresponding to a single bar code read; and, combining all of the regenerated bar code data streams into a single output bar code data stream.

Growing community of inventors

Lake Worth, FL, United States of America

Stephen Eugene Still