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:
Jul. 04, 2000
Filed:
Jul. 13, 1998
Soheil I Sayegh, Gaithersburg, MD (US);
Comsat Corporation, Bethesda, MD (US);
Abstract
A completely autonomous failure recovery scheme for digital beam forming that provides self-diagnosis and self-healing of faulty processing chains in a communications satellite payload. A baseline processor comprises a plurality of processing chains that are identical in hardware and differ only in software. A redundant chain is programmed identically to the first processing chain by downloading the appropriate software coefficients from a controller. The first chain is then selected by a SELECT logic component its output is compared by a COMPARE logic component to the output of the redundant chain. In the absence of malfunctions, the two outputs should be identical. If the two outputs are not identical, the chain is diagnosed as faulty and it is replaced by a 'hot' standby redundant chain. Further, a control signal from the diagnosis module alters the position of at least one output switch to disconnect the faulty module. The redundant chain is then programmed identically to the second processing chain and the outputs are compared to determine whether the chain is faulty. The cycle repeats for each consecutive processing chain. This permits the identification of which chain, if any, is faulty. This scheme is completely autonomous providing both self-diagnosis and self-healing.