The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 14, 1993
Filed:
Mar. 16, 1992
Jay C McMullan, Jr, Doraville, GA (US);
Lee R Johnson, Lawrenceville, GA (US);
Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., Norcross, GA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for disabling the output of a data transmission system when a relatively high error rate is detected in the transmitted signal. The error muting technique of the invention functions as the digital equivalent of a leaky integrator with hysteresis. In particular, the signal quality of the received data transmission is monitored, and a predetermined value is added to an accumulator or error counter when an error is detected. This value varies depending upon the nature of the detected error such that more serious errors are given greater error values. The error counter is also decremented by one or some other amount at a programmable time interval in accordance with the maximum acceptable error rate. The error count (accumulator sum) is continuously compared to a programmable error threshold, and if the threshold is exceeded, the output of the data transmission system is disabled, or in the case of a digital audio transmission system, is muted. Once disabled or muted, the output is not reenabled or unmuted until the error counter is decremented all the way down to a lower limit such as zero. In a particular embodiment of the invention, the error counter is decremented at a different rate when the output of the data transmission system has been disabled or muted so that the system may be more or less rapidly returned to normal operation.