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:
Aug. 02, 1994
Filed:
Nov. 15, 1991
Hiroshi Kimura, Northridge, CA (US);
Tetsuo Hadeishi, deceased, late of Kensington, CA (US);
Harold M Olsen, W. Covina, CA (US);
Chan S Bak, Newberry Park, CA (US);
Hughes Aircraft Company, Los Angeles, CA (US);
Abstract
A spark-excited fluorescence sensor (10) is provided which enables monitoring of various gas species (14), such as H.sub.2, CO.sub.x, NO.sub.x, N2, NH.sub.x and hydrocarbons added to a system as source fuels and/or additive agents, or discharged from a system as exhaust including pollutants, for more efficient use of fuels for optimizing performance of the system, and, also, for reducing pollutants in the atmosphere. The spark-excited fluorescence sensor of the invention comprises a spark plug (12) to excite molecules of the gaseous species, an optical fiber window (18) and an optical fiber bundle (20) to collect and transmit, respectively, the fluorescence, bandpass filters ( 24 ) to select predetermined wavelengths corresponding to the gases to be detected, detectors (26), and signal processor (28 ) . The output from the signal processor is then used to improve overall performance of the system.