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. 10, 1996
Filed:
Nov. 14, 1994
Donald G Fulop, San Jose, CA (US);
Loral Aerospace Corp., , DE (US);
Abstract
A system and method for acquiring a satellite with an antenna using a computing portion which determines the variation between the actual orientation of the antenna and an optimum orientation to acquire a satellite. The deviation is computed by: determining the actual orientation of the antenna with respect to true North and producing a first signal indicative thereof; determining the location of the antenna on the Earth and producing a second signal indicative thereof; determining the elevation of the satellite with respect to the location of the antenna and producing a third signal indicative thereof; determining the azimuth of the satellite with respect to the location of the antenna and producing a fourth signal indicative thereof; and using log data for the satellite along with the first, second, third, and fourth signals to compute the position of the satellite relative to the antenna and produce a signal indicative of the deviation. A display is used for illustrating the deviation and can be used as a coarse adjustment device. A second display provides information as to the received signal strength from the satellite to the antenna and can be used as a fine adjustment device. The coarse and the fine adjustment devices interact to provide an effective technique to acquire the satellite.