...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8179079 | Rotation angle detection device and electric power steering apparatus employing the same The rotation angle detection device detects the rotation angle of a rotary member by employing, at the least, either a sine wave signal or a cosine wave signal that is generated as the rotary member is rotated, and employs a change per unit time in the sine wave sig... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8106618 | Method and device for calibrating a position sensor placed on a shaft of a permanent magnet synchronous motor In a method and apparatus for calibrating a position sensor mounted on the shaft of a permanent magnet synchronous motor, to control the position of a rotor of the permanent magnet synchronous motor relative to a magnetic field produced by a stator of the permanent ... | 01/31/2012 |
| 7834576 | Apparatus and methods for diagnosing motor-resolver system faults Apparatus and methods are provided for diagnosing faults in multiple, associated motor-resolver systems. One apparatus includes a swapping circuit coupling a first resolver to a first or second decoder, and a swapping circuit coupling a second resolver to the first ... | 11/16/2010 |
| 7446499 | Position detecting apparatus having electric motor and method for detecting position A reference position detecting apparatus includes an electric motor and a motor control unit. The electric motor includes a plurality of first coils and a plurality of second coils. The electric motor further includes a rotor that rotates when at least one of the pl... | 11/04/2008 |
| 7408315 | Motor control apparatus, motor control circuit, and method thereof A motor control apparatus for controlling a motor based on an output from a sensor includes a storage unit storing a value according to an excitation power supply to excite the sensor, a PWM output unit outputting a PWM output signal having a pulse width modulated t... | 08/05/2008 |
| 7362070 | Electric motor control system including position determination and error correction A system for controlling an electric motor includes a controller and a position indicator that provides position information regarding at least one motor component to the controller. The controller utilizes phase relationships indicative of the position information ... | 04/22/2008 |
| 7343254 | Resolver digital converter In a resolver digital converter comprising a resolver, a resolver digital conversion part, and an excitation signal generation part, the resolver digital converter for inputting an excitation signal generated in the excitation signal generation part to the resolver ... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7339334 | Real-time responsive motor control system The present invention discloses a real-time responsive motor control system comprising a central MCU (Microcontroller Unit) core logic and at least one PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) MCU core logic. The central MCU core logic takes care of all interrupt events. The PW... | 03/04/2008 |
| 7332884 | Electric motor control strategies An electric start system (20) includes a controller (40) that controls operation of a motor (22) used to start a device such as a gas turbine engine (24). In one example, the controller (40) determines when an acceleration rate of ... | 02/19/2008 |
| 7321216 | Motor control apparatus and vehicle steering apparatus using the same This invention provides a motor control apparatus and vehicle steering apparatus capable of determining whether the motor control CPU is normal or abnormal with an inexpensive structure. A monitor circuit 70 of an ECU 50 outputs a trigger signal trg ba... | 01/22/2008 |
| 7319303 | Method and apparatus for estimating the position of a moving part of a linear actuator A method and an apparatus for estimating the position of a moving part of a linear actuator are provided. The method comprises the following steps. Move the moving part towards a target position. Receive magnetic signals generated by the magneto-resistive sensor of ... | 01/15/2008 |
| 7312590 | Model railroad velocity controller Control over velocity of a model train may be determined based upon the speed of rotation of a control knob. A processor receives electronic pulses indicating rotation of the knob beyond a predetermined increment of angular distance. The processor calculates the amo... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7309972 | Method for determining the rotor position of a synchronous motor The rotor position of a synchronous motor is determined, in that for a plurality of current vectors distributed over one electrical rotation of the synchronous motor, the amount of the current vector which is necessary to attain a defined deflection of the rotor is ... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7307392 | Method and apparatus for processing the output signal of an encoder An apparatus for processing a signal output by an encoder, including a frequency multiplication unit to repeatedly multiply each of frequencies of two sinusoidal signals with a phase difference of approximately 90 degrees by a predetermined number a predetermined nu... | 12/11/2007 |
| 7279859 | EC motor and method for operating same In a method for operating an EC motor, position-measurement signals are recorded by a position-measuring device, and, on the basis of the position-measurement signals, commutation instants are determined, at which the current supply to the EC motor is commutated. At... | 10/09/2007 |
| 7268988 | Apparatus and method for detecting rotation In a rotation detection apparatus, a rotation-angle detector detects a rotation angle of a rotating body based on an output signal generated by a resolver. An exciting-signal generation circuit supplies an exciting signal for exiting the resolver to generate the out... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7266421 | System for controlling lifting and remote handling units located in a confined enclosure The control system is used to control manipulation equipment (41) and carrying equipment (43) confined in a containment (40) inaccessible to operators and to perform maintenance operations related to electronic circuits for onboard equipment enc... | 09/04/2007 |
| 7262578 | Direct control of an induction motor This invention relates to sensorless control (i.e. without encoder at the motor shaft) of an induction motor (AC asynchronous motor). In particular, the invention comprises a method for a direct measurement of the electromotive forces (EMF) at the stator of the moto... | 08/28/2007 |
| 7235966 | Resolver unit and resolver using same A resolver unit having a structure in which the axial length is shortened to prevent the magnetic coupling characteristic between the rotary and stationary sides from being impaired, a winding generates more magnetic fluxes, and multiplexing is easily conducted, and... | 06/26/2007 |
| 7224139 | Servo driver and encoder signal processing IC A servo driver (3) includes: an input section (11) for input-specifying the type of an encoder (7) at the side of an actuator (2); a control section (13) for generating a control signal (12) according to the type input; and ... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7209862 | Self-diagnosing system for encoder A self-diagnosing system for an encoder. The system includes an encoder circuit for outputting information detected by an encoder; a data preparing section provided in the encoder circuit and preparing data representing a state of an abnormal-state judgment factor i... | 04/24/2007 |
| 7205916 | Digital method and apparatus for resolving shaft position An apparatus and method for determining an angular position of a shaft are disclosed, which comprise resolving an excitation signal at an excitation frequency into at least two orthogonal signals, converting the orthogonal signals to a digital estimate, for each of ... | 04/17/2007 |
| 7190145 | Method and apparatus for improving speed measurement quality in multi-pole machines A method and apparatus for improving speed measurement quality in systems having multi-pole machines is taught. The method compensates for pole misalignment by computing speed based upon moving average techniques. In one embodiment, a moving average speed averaged o... | 03/13/2007 |
| 7174270 | Rotation angle detecting apparatus and method of detecting rotation angle A rotation angle detecting apparatus having a reference signal-generating device that generated a reference signal; a rotation angle detecting section that generated an output signal in response to the reference signal; a feedback control section that determines a r... | 02/06/2007 |
| 7159688 | Electric power steering device In an electric power steering apparatus that urges a steering shaft or a rack shaft with an assist load using the drive force of a motor by a transmission mechanism via reduction gears, the reduction gears includes a rotation angle sensor assembled integrally therew... | 01/09/2007 |
| 7157906 | Double variable reluctance resolver for a multiple speed resolver system A double variable reluctance resolver in which a redundancy is given to a variable reluctance resolver to improve reliability. The double variable reluctance resolver also functions as a multiple speed resolver system. ... | 01/02/2007 |
| 7154404 | Electric power steering system having failure detection apparatus An electric power steering system comprises a three-phase brushless DC motor, a steering torque detector, a resolver for detecting a resolver rotation angle of the three-phase brushless DC motor, a processing unit and a failure detection apparatus. The processing un... | 12/26/2006 |
| 7145262 | Wind turbine generator system A wind turbine generator system is equipped with a three phase generator connected to a shaft of a windmill, a converter connected to a stator of the generator, and an inverter connected to the converter and also to an electric power system. The system extracts a to... | 12/05/2006 |
| 7141945 | Method and apparatus for controlling motor drive In the invention, a PWM signal is formed at a frequency of a reference pulse signal, the PWM signal which has a pulse width being changed according to a frequency difference between an FG pulse signal for detecting a speed of a brushless motor and the reference puls... | 11/28/2006 |
| 7138796 | Rotation angle sensor A rotation angle sensor that outputs different axis combination angles as absolute position information by forming a range of salient poles that have different axis combination angles from each other on the rotor and the stator. ... | 11/21/2006 |
| 7135860 | Variable reluctance resolver including rotor with multiple detection portions A variable reluctance resolver has a rotor with magnetic poles with 2× or greater axis combination angles, and is structured so that reliable and accurate zero point detection can be carried out. Concave and convex portions are provided on at least two, but fewer t... | 11/14/2006 |
| 7129665 | Control apparatus for feed driving system A control apparatus for a machine that can be operated at high precision in a stable control state is provided by driving a movable body with control parameters suited to the mechanical state. A control parameter calculation circuit is provided to obtain control par... | 10/31/2006 |
| 7126304 | Motor controller and electric power steering apparatus A microcomputer includes a rotation angular velocity computation section, a feedback gain determination section, and a dead time compensation amount determination section. The rotation angular velocity determination section computes the rotation angular velocity of ... | 10/24/2006 |
| 7123175 | Angle detection apparatus computing phase differences between first and second phase angles A resolver use angle detection IC subjected to a phase lock operation so as to follow not an angle θ(t) for detection, but a phase angle ωot±θ(t) having an offset of a frequency ωot in the phase lock units. For this reason, when the excitation frequency ωot is... | 10/17/2006 |
| 7119507 | Brushless DC motor and brushless DC motor controller A brushless DC motor has a stator and a rotor. An angle θ0 between an edge section of the flux barrier on a magnetic pole center side and an edge section on a side for coming in contact with the rib of adjacent flux barrier, with respect to the rotor cen... | 10/10/2006 |
| 7119536 | Two-resolver deviation angle detector having serially connected output windings A deviation angle detector enlarges the application range by enlarging the detectable deviation angle range. The deviation angle detector has two resolvers, which have rotors, stators, and single excitation windings and multiple output windings that are coiled aroun... | 10/10/2006 |
| 7117754 | Torque ripple sensor and mitigation mechanism A torque ripple sensor and method for torque ripple sensing and/or mitigation. A piezoelectric sensor is positioned relative to a motor so that torque fluctuations due to torque ripple of the motor are transmitted to the sensor, resulting in strain of a piezoelectri... | 10/10/2006 |
| 7103448 | Robot system A robot system capable of performing automatic updating of data inherent to a robot mechanism section or a mechanical unit thereof when changing the robot mechanism section or the mechanical unit. After changing the robot mechanism section or the mechanical unit, da... | 09/05/2006 |
| 7102317 | Method and apparatus to process an analog encoder signal A method and apparatus to process an analog encoder signal. The apparatus includes an analog encoder pattern generating unit, an analog encoder pattern storage unit, a digital/analog converting unit, a comparing unit, a recent state latch unit, a present state deter... | 09/05/2006 |
| 7095132 | Wind turbine generator system An object of the present invention is to minimize the torsional vibration caused on the shafting of the wind turbine genarator system so as to operate the windmill stably. A wind turbine genarator system according to the present invention, equipped with a syn... | 08/22/2006 |