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:
Apr. 30, 1996
Filed:
Oct. 27, 1994
Mark E Nichols, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Nicholas C Talbot, Cupertino, CA (US);
Trimble Navigation Limited, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A surveyor range pole, for example, equipped with a GPS receiver and antenna mounted at the top end, a battery mounted at the bottom end to better balance the pole, a tilt sensor and a direction sensor. The tilt sensor and direction sensor provide information about the vector that lies between the top and the bottom points of the range pole. The GPS receiver computes the position of the top end of the range pole from GPS satellite signals received by the GPS at the top end, and then computes the position of the bottom end of the range pole with the vector information. A variable length, telescoping range pole includes a linear transducer for automatically measuring the overall length of the range pole and contributing that length information to the vector calculation.