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Patent No. 5443036

Method of exercising a cat

A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall.

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Attorney: Patent Department;Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.


Number of applications: 167
Last date: May 08, 2008

1          
Application No.Application TitleIssue Date
20080107061Communicating packets in a wireless multi-user multi-hop relay networks
A method communicates packets in a relay network. Multiple packets are communicated between a set of mobile stations and a relay station using a set of connections. There is one connection between each mobile station and the relay station. The multiple packets are aggre...
05/08/2008
20080025222Method for finding minimal cost paths under uncertainty
A computer implemented method finds a path having a minimal expected cost through a network of nodes connected by arcs, in which the path is from a source node to a destination node, and in which a traversal time for traversing each arc is a random variable. An expected...
01/31/2008
20070248172System and method for transmitting signals in cooperative base station multi-user MIMO networks
A method transmits and receives signals in a cooperative, multi-user, multi-input, multi-output network. The network includes base stations (BSs) and mobile stations (MSs). Each BS has at least two antennas, and each MS has at least one antenna. At a first base station ...
10/25/2007
20070098288Enhancing low quality videos of illuminated scenes
A method enhances a low quality video. An input video Vjin is acquired of a scene under uncontrolled illumination. The input video Vjin is smoothed to produce a noise-reduced video Sj. Temporal gradients Gt
05/03/2007
20070053507Secure classifying of data with Gaussian distributions
A first party has a data vector x and a second party has a classifier defined as a set of multivariate Gaussian distributions. A secure inner dot product procedure is applied to each multivariate Gaussian distribution and the data vector x to produce a vector ai
03/08/2007
20070052578Method and system for identifying moving objects using doppler radar
A method identifies a moving object by first transmitting a signal at a predetermined frequency. An unknown object reflects the signal, and the reflected signal is detected. Frequencies of the reflected signal are modulated according to motion of the unknown object. Gen...
03/08/2007
20070053201Field display system
A display system includes display elements embedded in a playing surface. The display elements are configured to display images or video in the playing surface. The playing surface can be a soccer field, a football field, a rugby field, a baseball field, a track field, ...
03/08/2007
20070041352Elevator calling mechanism and method
A system calls elevator cars using a wireless network of nodes. A mobile node at an unknown location broadcasts a request packet. The request packet includes an identification of the mobile node and an elevator call command. One or more fixed nodes at known locations me...
02/22/2007
20070036090Structured addressing method for wireless networks
A method assigns addresses to nodes in a wireless network. An address space is defined as an n-dimensional grid, each grid intersection having coordinates of a corresponding possible node of a wireless network, a number of components of each coordinate being equal to a ...
02/15/2007
20070036241Energy threshold selection for UWB TOA estimation
A method for estimation a time-of-arrival of a radio signal is provided. The signal is an ultra-wideband (UWB) signal. The method uses kurtosis of the received signal to estimate an energy threshold of the signal. The energy threshold can be used to determine a time-of-...
02/15/2007
20070034523Fuel-cell actuated mechanical device
A method generates mechanical energy by storing water in a fuel-cell and a pressure equalization device. The water stored in the fuel-cell is electrolyzed into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas, which displaces the water stored in the pressure equalization device. The displac...
02/15/2007
20070033045Method and system for tracking signal sources with wrapped-phase hidden markov models
A method models trajectories of a signal source. Training signals generated by a signal source moving along known trajectories are acquired by each sensor in an array of sensors. Phase differences between all unique pairs of the training signals are determined. A wrappe...
02/08/2007
20070030356Method and system for processing multiview videos for view synthesis using side information
A method processes a multiview videos of a scene, in which each video is acquired by a corresponding camera arranged at a particular pose, and in which a view of each camera overlaps with the view of at least one other camera. Side information for synthesizing a particu...
02/08/2007
20070024742Method and apparatus for enhancing flash and ambient images
A method and system generate an enhanced output image. A first image is acquired of a scene illuminated by a first illumination condition. A second image is acquired of the scene illuminated by a second illumination condition. First and second gradient images are determ...
02/01/2007
20070025637Retargeting images for small displays
A method retargets an image to a different size. An input image is segmented into regions. Selected regions are cut from the input image to construct a background image. The background image is scaled to a predetermined size, and the selected regions are pasted back int...
02/01/2007
20070025720Method for estimating camera settings adaptively
A camera is configured to adaptively determine camera settings. The camera includes a plurality of sensors elements configured to acquire a current image of a scene according to a current set of camera settings. A number of sensor elements having a set of desirable prop...
02/01/2007
20070024756System and method for defocus difference matting
A method extracts an alpha matte from a video acquired of a scene. A set of pinhole or narrow aperture images IP is acquired of the scene with a camera aperture set to a relatively large depth-of-field. The scene includes a background B and a foreground F. A ...
02/01/2007
20070025717Method and apparatus for acquiring HDR flash images
A method generates a high dynamic range image by first acquiring a set of images of a scene illuminated by different lighting conditions. The set of images are then combined to generate a high dynamic range image. ...
02/01/2007
20070025727Fast switching camera aperture
A camera aperture includes a first polarizer and a second polarizer with a polarization 90° with respect to the first polarizer. The second polarizer has a through hole at a center. A polarizing rotator is disposed between the first polarizer and the second polarizer. ...
02/01/2007
20060291696Subspace projection based non-rigid object tracking with particle filters
A method tracks non-rigid objects in a video acquired of a cluttered scene by a camera. The method uses a particle filter. The tracking includes the following steps: motion transition estimation, contour deformation detection, and contour regulation. The method uses a d...
12/28/2006
20060290780Method for modeling cast shadows in videos
A method models a scene. A video is acquired of the scene, and for each frame of the video, the method updates a set of background models for each pixel; a set of shadow models for each pixel; a set of shadow flow vectors for each color; and a background shadow map. Eac...
12/28/2006
20060284971Composite surveillance camera system
A method and apparatus acquires images of a scene with an omni-directional imager and a pan-tilt-zoom imager. A relationship between pixels in the input image and locations in the scene is expressed in terms of polar coordinates. An event is detected in the input images...
12/21/2006
20060280342Method and system for generating bi-linear models for faces
A method generates a three-dimensional, bi-linear, illumination model for arbitrary faces. A large number of images are acquired of many different faces. For each face, multiple images are acquired with varying poses and varying illumination. A three-mode singular value...
12/14/2006
20060280343Bilinear illumination model for robust face recognition
A method recognizes a face in an image. A morphable model having shape and pose parameters is fitted to a face in an image to construct a three-dimensional model of the face. Texture is extracted from the face in the image using the three-dimensional model. The shape an...
12/14/2006
20060265210Constructing broad-band acoustic signals from lower-band acoustic signals
A method generates envelope spectra and harmonic spectra from an input broad-band training acoustic signal. Corresponding non-negative envelope bases are trained for the envelope spectra and non-negative harmonic bases are trained for the harmonic spectra using convolut...
11/23/2006
20060262959Modeling low frame rate videos with bayesian estimation
A video is acquired of a scene. Each pixel in each frame of the video is represented by multiple of layers. Each layer includes multiple Gaussian distributions. Each Gaussian distribution includes a mean and a covariance. The covariance is an inverse Wishart distributio...
11/23/2006
20060265388Information retrieval system and method for distinguishing misrecognized queries and unavailable documents
A system and method disambiguates between an incorrectly recognized spoken query and a correctly recognized spoken query for which there are no currently available documents in a database. The method generates a list of unavailable categories of documents. The method al...
11/23/2006
20060256210Spatio-temporal graphical user interface for querying videos
A method summarizes a video acquired of a scene spatially and temporally by specifying a spatial query and a temporal query. Frames of the video are selected according to the spatial query and the temporal query, and then the selected frames are composited into an image...
11/16/2006
20060245471Adaptive frame durations for time-hopped impulse radio systems
A method determines a duration of a frame in an impulse radio system for radio ranging. Channel state information of a channel between two transceivers is estimated periodically. A signal to noise and interference ratio is also estimated periodically. The frame duration...
11/02/2006
20060228048Context aware video conversion method and playback system
A computer implemented method converts and displays a video. An input video acquired of a scene is segmented into shots. Similar shots are combined sequentially into corresponding chains. Each frame of the input video is then rendered into a composite image according to...
10/12/2006
20060227137Skin reflectance model for representing and rendering faces
A face is scanned to obtain a three-dimensional geometry of the face, images are also acquired of the face, and subsurface scattering of the face is measured. A translucency map is determined from the subsurface reflectance. A total surface reflectance and a normal map ...
10/12/2006
20060221209Apparatus and method for acquiring and combining images of a scene with multiple optical characteristics at multiple resolutions
A camera system acquires multiple optical characteristics at multiple resolutions of a scene. The camera system includes multiple optical elements arranged as a tree having a multiple of nodes connected by edges. the nodes represent optical elements sharing a single opt...
10/05/2006
20060222205Tracking objects in low frame rate videos
A method tracks a moving object in a video acquired of a scene with a camera. A background model is maintained for each frame, and moving objects are detected according to changes in the background model. An object model is maintained for the moving object, and kernels ...
10/05/2006
20060215849Locating and tracking acoustic sources with microphone arrays
A method constructs a location model for locating and tracking sources of acoustic signals. Acoustic training signals are acquired from an acoustic training source at an unknown location in an environment with an array of microphones placed at unknown positions in the e...
09/28/2006
20060209268System and method for mechanically adjusting projector pose with six degrees of freedom for image alignment
A method adjusts a pose of a projector with respect to a display surface. A homography HD,P is determined between a display surface and a projector. The homography HD,P is decomposed into rotation and translation parameters expressing a pose M...
09/21/2006
20060208070Real-time retail marketing system and method
A marketing system and method for a retail environment periodically reads RFID tags attached to products to produce a list of product identifications. Consumer recommendation rules are updated according to each list, and recommendations are generated according to the up...
09/21/2006
20060211383Push-to-talk wireless telephony
In a cellular network, a cell phone transmits a continuous voice signal over a voice channel to a server. The cell phone can also generate events, the events including on events and off events. The events can be time-stamped. The events are transmitted as a data signal ...
09/21/2006
20060209924Adaptive delay adjustment for transmitted reference impulse radio systems
A method determines a delay time between reference and data pulses in a time-hopping impulse radio system. Channel state information of a channel between two transceivers is estimated periodically. The delay time frame between the reference and data pulses is then deter...
09/21/2006
20060203931M-ary modulation of signals for coherent and differentially coherent receivers
A system incorporates TH-IR, TR-IR and noncoherent transceivers in the same wireless network. A transmitter modulates a sequence of bits in a wireless communications network by selecting one coding sequence from a set of orthogonal or quasi-orthogonal coding sequences b...
09/14/2006
20060193279Method and system for accessing a channel in a wireless communications network using multi-polling
A method and system accesses a wireless channel in a communications network including multiple stations and an access point connected by the wireless channel. The access point periodically broadcasts polling information indicating when a station can transmit. A next sta...
08/31/2006
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