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. 15, 1999
Filed:
Dec. 15, 1997
Paul G Angott, Bloomfield, MI (US);
Thomas G Xydis, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
Other;
Abstract
A vehicle central processing unit (CPU) (50) controls the power unit (16 or 18) to control the direction of movement of the carriage (12) of a lawn mower for determining the position of the lawn mower relative to locating stations (36, 38 and 40) in response to the time of movement from the counter (54) of the distance determining transmissions between the transceivers (42) at the locating stations (36, 38 and 40) and the lawn mower. The assembly is characterized by a generating circuit (60) for starting the counter (54) and generating a number of discrete subsignals to define each of the distance determining transmissions with each of the discrete subsignals being of equal velocity, a receiving circuit for stopping the counter (54) to store the number of the predetermined units for each of the subsignals, and an averaging circuit (64) for summing the number of the predetermined units for all of the subsignals in each of the distance determining transmissions and dividing by the number of the subsignals to provide the average number of the predetermined units to the central processing unit (CPU) (50) thereby providing a distance traveled time more accurate than the predetermined units. In other words and by way of example only, even though the counter (54) may only count in tenths, the averaged measurement may be in hundredths, i.e., a smaller division than the counter units.