Did You Know...
...that Robert Adler has the dubious distinction of being the Father of the Couch Potato? Back in 1955 Adler was employed by what was then Zenith Radio Corp., where he was charged to invent something that would allow viewers to turn down the TV volume without leaving their chairs. After a series of flops (such as a wired contraption that people tripped over), Adler hit on the idea of using sound waves. Thus the Remote Control was born...
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 6163296 | Calibration and integrated beam control/conditioning system for phased-array antennas A near-field calibration arrangement for an antenna array determines the phase shifts or attenuation of the elemental control elements of the array. The calibration system includes a probe located in the near field, and a calibration tone generator. The t... | 12/19/2000 |
| 6128123 | Wavelength-tunable eye protection An eye protection arrangement for protection against multispectral laser threats includes goggles or spectacles with a tunable etalon optical filter. In one embodiment, the optical filter is fixed-tuned to a safe frequency. In another embodiment, light fr... | 10/03/2000 |
| 6113035 | Attitude control by modulating the rate of propellant depletion A spacecraft according to the invention includes a pair of propellant tanks, with the nominal center of mass of the spacecraft located therebetween. Propellant is coupled from the tanks to a velocity-change-inducing thruster by a controllable coupling arr... | 09/05/2000 |
| 6014372 | Antenna beam congruency system for spacecraft cellular communications system A spacecraft-based cellular communications system includes a spacecraft with transmit and receive antennas, each of which produces a plurality of spot beams which, together, provide coverage of the region served. In order to control the pointing of the sp... | 01/11/2000 |
| 5984237 | Delta-V targeting system for three-axis controlled spacecraft A three-axis stabilized spacecraft is subject to a velocity change in a desired direction by a thruster. Unavoidable alignment errors cause a body torque, which tends to slew the body away from the attitude which orients the thrust axis in the direction. ... | 11/16/1999 |
| 5949580 | Multipole light switch or multiplexer using rotator and interferometer A two-way light amplitude divider includes a light rotator (18) with first (181), second (182) and third (183) ports. The second port is coupled to a port of a controllable Fabry-Perot etalon (22). The etalon can take on a... | 09/07/1999 |
| 5927654 | Spacecraft with active antenna array protected against temperature extremes A spacecraft carries a deployable active antenna array panel(s) and a deployable solar array panel(s). In the stowed condition, the antenna array panel(s) is sandwiched between a side of the body of the spacecraft and the solar array panel(s). This stowed... | 07/27/1999 |
| 5911389 | Wave based satellite constellation A constellation (100) comprising a plurality of man-made satellites (1-27). The satellites (1-27) orbit a celestial body (110) along a plurality of orbits (120-128), which are located at a substantially common altitude and have a substantially common incl... | 06/15/1999 |
| 5907541 | Architecture for an integrated mobile and fixed telecommunications system including a spacecraft A communication system (10) includes a plurality of fixed terrestrial gateway terminals (14) and fixed village terminals (18), and also includes a plurality of mobile user terminals (16). The system includes a first satellite (12m) which provides communic... | 05/25/1999 |
| 5874924 | Spacecraft antenna array with directivity enhancing rings An array antenna (12atf) particularly useful for a spacecraft includes a plurality of antenna elements (310). Each of the elements includes a conductive hexagonal cup (408) having sides (410a, 410b, 410c, . . .) which are thirteen twentieths of a waveleng... | 02/23/1999 |
| 5862276 | Planar microphotonic circuits A microphotonic circuit includes one or more light control elements such as modulators or switches coupled in polymer waveguides, and controlled by electrical bias fields produced by voltage or light sources. Each modulator or switch includes at least one... | 01/19/1999 |
| 5862495 | Real time position correction to ground generated spacecraft ephemeris Real time correction to ground generated satellite ephemeris implements a reference trajectory management module (334), an error estimation module (336), an parameter calculation module (338) and a position information management module (340). The referen... | 01/19/1999 |
| 5838813 | Dithered image reconstruction A dithered image reconstruction system and method that compensates for inter-detector errors in a manner that does not adversely affect detection of small-amplitude images in the presence of a very bright large-amplitude background. An overlapping dither ... | 11/17/1998 |
| 5790071 | Method for determining orientation and attitude of a satellite- or aircraft-borne phased-array antenna A Tripulse method determines the orientation or attitude of a phased-array antenna located at a remote site, such as an aircraft or spacecraft. Three pulses are transmitted from the phased-array antenna in an estimated direction toward a coherent receiver... | 08/04/1998 |
| 5786940 | Optical system design optimization using an analytical figure of merit Analytical optical system design optimization implements an optical material selection module (302), a thin lens power calculation module (304), a prescription module (306), a figure of merit determination module (308), a bending adjustment module (310), ... | 07/28/1998 |
| 5744710 | Fast maximum likelihood processor for means wind velocity estimation A real time maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) processor employs a table look-up mechanism to eliminate the MLE computation complexity. The real time MLE processor can be implemented with digital signal processing (DSP) chips in a personal computer. Optim... | 04/28/1998 |
