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:
Oct. 31, 2006
Filed:
Jan. 13, 2006
Michael A. Koets, Atascosa, TX (US);
Michael A. Koets, Atascosa, TX (US);
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX (US);
Abstract
A method of locating one or more reflectors in an environment crowded with reflectors. A transmitter and multiple receivers are used to obtain reflected signals. Each path of a reflected signal is defined by an ellipse having the transmitter at one focus and a receiver at the other. A reflector is assumed to lie on the ellipse, and an intersection of ellipses is assumed to be a reflector location. The region is iteratively divided into smaller and smaller cells, and a search algorithm is performed to determine whether a given point in each cell lies on an ellipse. A 'solution' is a point that lies on the same number of ellipses as the number of receivers.