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:
Jun. 11, 1996
Filed:
Jan. 06, 1993
Michael J Donahue, San Francisco, CA (US);
Mark D Pesce, San Francisco, CA (US);
Marc de Groot, San Francisco, CA (US);
Michael A Perry, Oakland, CA (US);
Donald E Drumm, Billerica, MA (US);
Virtual I/O, Inc., Seattle, WA (US);
Abstract
A sourceless orientation sensor having an azimuthal sensor which determines the azimuthal orientation relative to a planetary magnetic field, and a tilt sensor which determines the direction and magnitude of the displacement from vertical using the planetary gravitational field. The tilt sensor includes a transparent gas and a transparent viscous fluid in a spherical shell, a light emitting diode (LED) mounted at the top of the shell, and four photodetectors mounted at the bottom of the shell. As the tilt sensor is rotated the path of the light cone emanating from the LED and refracting at the gas/fluid interface is altered, thereby altering the intensity of light incident on the photodetectors. The magnitude of the light incident on the photodetectors is processed to provide the tilt angles. A thin transparent disk floats at the gas/fluid interface to damp surface waves caused by reorientation of the device. A time sequence of orientations of the sensor may be interpreted to provided a gesture sensing device.