Rca Inc.

Other

General Electric Company

Lockheed Martin Corporation

William H Meise

Robert A Dischert

Arye Rosen

Thomas William Karras

Paul Walinsky

Paul J Stabile

Harvey L Wagner

Keith Davies

Clement A Berard, Jr

Charles Frederick Fey, Iii

A user-portable device determines its own geolocation, and compares that location with a region defined by at least one memorized specified location and a distance. A deviation or alarm signal is generated when either within or without the defined region. In one version, the memorized specified location is the geolocation of another, remote user-portable device.

Embedded electronic security system

An optical fiber that transforms light of undesired polarization into light of desired polarization. In principle, the signal power of the non-preferred polarization is transformed into signal power of the preferred polarization, thereby actually transforming the polarization. The fiber can have a circular end for input of light having randomly phased polarization, and an elongated end for output of light having a single principal orientation component. A generally smooth transition from the circular end to the elongated end causes substantially all the light entering the fiber to exit from the fiber without losing light due to reflection or radiation. Alternatively, the fiber can have a lobed end, for input of light having first and second mutually orthogonal polarization components, and an elongated end, for output of light having a single principal orientation component. Alternatively, the fiber can be a combination of the two forms described above. That is, the fiber can have a circular section that transforms first into a lobed section with increasing distance from the input port, with the lobed section then transforms into an elongated (e.g., elliptical or ovoid) section with increasing distance from the input port.

Light polarization transformer

A conventional balloon catheter is used in conjunction with an inflation control system which senses the heartbeat electrically or by way of arterial pressure, and which controls the balloon inflation condition in synchronism therewith, thereby deflating the balloon during periods, such as diastole (heart muscle relaxation), to allow blood to flow past the deflated balloon, and inflating the balloon during systolic (heart muscle contraction) periods, so that the plaque may be compressed, or the walls of the artery or other vas may be expanded by the inflated balloon. Since blood can pass the location of the balloon during each heartbeat, nutrient blood flow continues during the angioplasty procedure, so the procedure may be continued for a longer time than during conventional treatment. Since the blood flow is 'time-division multiplexed' using a conventional angioplasty catheter, the catheter may be smaller andor more flexible than a conventional perfusion catheter, allowing its use in smaller arteries, and at lower catheter cost. The heart sensor may include a plurality of electrodes such as are ordinarily used for electrocardiograms (EKGs) or an arterial pressure sensor, connected to a control circuit which responds to a distinctive portion of the electrical signal therefrom. In a particular embodiment of the invention, action potentials may be obtained from a location adjacent the balloon.

Cyclic coronary angioplasty system

A fluid compressor or pump includes a driver such as a reciprocating piston or a voice-coil actuated diaphragm, which creates pressure waves in the fluid. The waves propagate through a tapered tube, in which the pressure increases as the waves move toward the small end. A valve at the small end of the tapered tube allows higher-pressure portions of the pulses of fluid to emerge. The pulses of pressurized fluid may be applied directly to a utilization apparatus, or they may be accumulated in a tank. The tapered tube may be more than one-tenth wavelength long, and preferably one-quarter wavelength long, to take advantage of the effects of reflections. A refrigeration unit including such a compressor dispenses with an accumulator, and provides heat-dissipating fins on the outer surface of the tapered tube.

Tapered fluid compressor & refrigeration apparatus

A rectangular waveguide series junction has a layer of photoconductive material in one branch near the junction. The photoconductive material, when dark, is essentially a dielectric, which effectively increases the dimension of the waveguide branch over what it would be if not modified, thereby increasing its impedance at the series junction and causing power division preferentially into the branch. When illuminated, as by a laser or LED, the photoconductive layer becomes a conductor instead of a dielectric, and the dieletric 'increase' in the dimension is eliminated. Instead, the conductive material actually decreases the cross-section, to thereby reduce the actual impedance of the branch at the junction point. This reduces the amount of coupling below that for an unmodified waveguide branch. Thus, the amount of coupling into the branch at the junction is increased by the dielectric constant when the photoconductor is dark, and decreased by the conductivity when illuminated. A waveguide directional coupler includes one or more such controllable branches. Redundant light emitting diodes are located in slots adjacent the central seam of the directional coupler housing, for fine control of the coupling factor. Control may be applied to move nulls in the coupler isolation to reduce interference in antenna arrays, to adjust coupling to achieve improved channel-to-channel isolation, or to compensate for aging, or other changes of amplifiers or other circuit components.

Adjustable waveguide branch, and directional coupler

A fuel or fluid level measurement arrangement for a spacecraft includes one or more electromagnetic transmission lines extending into the reservoir. The presence of fuel adjacent the transmission line changes the dielectric constant or loss characteristics of the transmission line(s) in a measurable manner. In one embodiment, strip transmission lines extend parallel to the fluid surface at various degrees of ullage, and the fuel level can be established to within the spacing between the transmission lines.

Liquid sensor with high sensitivity near empty

A conventional exterior rear-view mirror is broken into vertical segments and collapsed into a stack in a plane roughly orthogonal to its original plane, so the frontal area is drastically reduced, thereby reducing drag and increasing fuel mileage. The total projected width of the vehicle is also reduced. In one embodiment of the invention, the exterior rear-view mirror is formed as part of a side window, thereby completely eliminating projections to achieve advanced streamlining, and also potentially decreasing manufacturing costs. In another embodiment, a rear view is provided from a sun roof. When formed as part of the canopy of an aircraft, a rear view is provided without significant weight or complexity. Another embodiment of the invention lies in a sheet of flexible adhesive-backed plastic which may be affixed to a window. In the context of a truck, the exterior rear-view mirror does not project significantly beyond the innermost edge of an equivalent conventional rear-view mirror, thereby reducing both drag and excess lateral dimension.

Rear-view mirror

An electrical short-circuit for alternating-current (ac) microwave signals is physically positionable in direct response to an electrical bias control without an intermediary electromechanical converter. The electrically positionable short circuit includes at least first and second doped regions in a semiconductor, separated by a region in which the short circuit is formed between the doped regions by the bias. A first embodiment comprises discrete diodes connected between conductors at different locations, the discrete diodes having different forward junction voltages, so that varying the common bias voltage varies the number of conducting diodes and thus positions the short circuit in a stepwise manner. A FET embodiment includes various discrete MOSFETs having different conduction threshold voltages, and having their sources and drains connected at various points to the conductors to be short-circuited, so that variations of a common gate bias voltage selectively render one or more of the FETs conductive, thereby stepwise positioning the short-circuit. Distributed PIN and MOSFET structures provide continuous short circuit positioning as a monotonic function of bias. Two distinct modes of operation, pinchoff/resistive and a resistive/below-threshold are possible for the distributed FET embodiment. The electrically positionable short-circuit can be coupled to the conductors of a transmission line for effecting tuning, or can be coupled to a transmission line in such a way as to vary the signal path length and thereby provide phase shift.

Electrically positionable short-circuits

A noise reduction circuit which operates on the principle of coring includes a variable offset potential source in series with one diode which is connected antiparallel with a second diode. The output terminal of the parallel circuit is connected to an integrating capacitor so that the turn-on potential of the diode circuit floats with the output potential. The variable offset potential source is responsive to the output potential to apply varying forward or back bias to one of the diodes and thereby change the coring threshold of the diode dependent upon signal amplitude. The variable offset potential source consists of a resistor connected between two variable current sources configured to provide equal currents of opposite polarity thereto. A digital implementation is also included.

Noise reduction system

A wide-angle television system, such as one having 2:1 or 5:3 aspect ratios, provides N portions that exceed the limits of a conventional 4:3 aspect ratio picture in regions that are normally hidden from view in a conventional receiver. Further, a receiver is provided wherein the picture is changed from the wide-angle display to the standard display by collapsing the horizontal scanning only. In another arrangement standard definition kinescopes having aspect ratios of 4:3 are masked in a special manner to provide a 5:3 aspect ratio display which may be collapsed to provide a 4:3 standard aspect ratio pictures.

Kinescope blanking scheme for wide-aspect ratio television

A wide-angle television system, such as one having 2:1 or 5:3 aspect ratios, transmits end portions that exceed the limits of a conventional 4:3 aspect ratio picture in regions that are normally hidden from view in a conventional receiver. Thus the system is compatible with such a receiver. These regions can comprise the overscan region, blanking intervals, high frequency portions of a chroma signal, etc. Time compression of the end portions can also be used. At a wide-angle receiver, inverse processing is used to reassemble a wide-angle picture.

Compatible wide-screen color television system

A digital signal coring circuit removes from a stream of incoming digital data words low-valued variations lying between upper and lower threshold reference values. Upper and lower threshold values are adjusted in response to the value of the outgoing cored digital data words so that such low-valued variations are removed over the entire range of values of the digital data words, and not merely around a baseline value.

Adaptive digital signal coring circuit

Two or more CCD imagers, which have random defects are optically coupled to form a single image. The CCD's are in registry. Because of the random nature of the location of the defects, the defective photosensors of one imager are aligned with good photosensors of another. Memories keep track of which locations of which CCD are defective. The imagers are operated synchronously and the signals from good photosensor locations are summmed for improved signal-to-noise ratio. When a location is addressed at which one imager has a defective photosensor, the respective memory decouples it from the good photosensor of the other imager. The signal level is restored for that pixel by increasing the gain of a preamp by the correct amount. If the imagers are made from the same mask, they may have almost identically corresponding defective photosensors. Then one imager is mounted upside-down relative to the other and scanned backwards so the defects do not coincide.

Error correction arrangement for imagers

A signal integrating capacitor receives signal current for an integration circuit. A current shunt is coupled to the capacitor. The integrated output is differentiated and degeneratively fed back to the shunting circuit to control the amount of signal current bypassed from the capacitor, thereby increasing the effective time constant associated with the capacitor.

Signal integrator with time constant controlled by differentiating

A composite video signal is coupled to the input of a tapped delay line of a vertical sync separator. A detector determines the presence of the vertical sync signal profile within the sampled portion of the composite video. An output signal is produced by the separator when the appropriate vertical sync profile is thus detected.

Growing community of inventors

Wrightstown, PA, United States of America

William H Meise