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:
Mar. 06, 2001
Filed:
Sep. 18, 1998
David A. Kienholz, Palo Alto, CA (US);
CSA Engineering, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a vibration isolation system. The Airborne Stabilization/Vibration Isolation System (AS/VIS) is a combination of advanced pneumatic passive suspension, high-capacity voice-coil actuators, integrated sensors, a control processor and a commercial system of software development tools. The entire vertical weight load is borne by the pneumatic mounts. Vertical payload motion is accommodated with little or no friction through the use of air bearings at all sliding surfaces of the mounts. The high-force voice-coil actuators provide a variety of performance enhancements to the passive isolation system. Primarily, they allow control of the payload mean position in the presence of low-frequency quasistatic load variations due to aircraft maneuvering. Horizontal and vertical displacement sensors detect the position of each actuator moving element relative to ground. The controller sends a signal to power amplifiers, which drive the horizontal and vertical voice-coil actuators. The active system can add damping, add or subtract stiffness, and can reduce isolator stroke requirements by feeding forward the low frequency portion of base acceleration.