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:
Mar. 12, 1996
Filed:
Sep. 28, 1994
Stanley Switlik, Pennington, NJ (US);
Other;
Abstract
An improved apparatus for reducing the drag of a moving body at the trailing end thereof by positioning panels extendable rearwardly from the trailing end of the moving body to minimize drag wherein deployment of the rearwardly extending panels is facilitated such as by allowing for automatic deployment of an upper horizontal panel responsive to conventional deployment of one or more vertically extending panels at forming the upper panel in a frame construction covered by flexible material. The upper panel can be spring loaded to further facilitate deployment and the lower horizontal panel can be easily deployed and possibly stored with respect to one of the vertically extending panels. Use of the frame configuration for deploying the upper horizontal panel also facilitates movement from the deployed to the stored position such as by including release cords preferably secured at one end with respect to the vertically movable preferably trapezoidally shaped frame. Two such horizontal panels with separate frames can be utilized to achieve full deployment of a horizontal panel across the lateral dimension of the trailing end of such a moving vehicle. Several novel configurations for deployment of a lower horizontal panel are also included herein. Also two similar horizontal foldable sections can be used to form the lowermost horizontal panel to form a completely automatic deployable device.