...that to encourage use of his new invention, the shopping cart, market owner Sylvan Goldman hired fake shoppers to push the carts around his store in Oklahoma City? Seems his customers were reluctant to give up their hand-carried baskets.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8096179 | Sensor device with reduced parasitic-induced error A device (110) includes a sensing element (26) having drive nodes (34, 36) and sense nodes (42, 44). Parasitic capacitance (22) is present between drive node (34) and sense node (42). Likewise, parasitic capacitance (... | 01/17/2012 |
| 8079258 | Gyroscope and pendulous gyroscopic accelerometer with adjustable scale factor, and gravity gradiometer using such Gyroscopes and pendulous gyroscopic accelerometers with adjustable scale factor are accomplished through control of the net angular momentum of a gyroscopic element such as a rotating or oscillating wheel or other mass. The sensitivity of a gravity gradiometer can b... | 12/20/2011 |
| 8042393 | Arrangement for measuring a rate of rotation using a vibration sensor An arrangement for measuring a rate of rotation using a vibration sensor, being excited and measured by means of capacitive drive elements, and the rotation of said sensor in an axis, excited by a rotation in another axis by means of the Coriolis force, being measur... | 10/25/2011 |
| RE42359 | Dynamical quantity sensor This invention provides a dynamical quantity sensor having a novel structure, wherein first beams 3, 4, 5, 6 are extended from side walls of a recess 2 of a substrate 1, and an intermediate support member 7 is disposed on the first beams ... | 05/17/2011 |
| 7886596 | Inertial sensor An inertial sensor, comprises a detection element detecting an amount of a physical quantity in a detection axis direction, a plurality of support members having flexibility and supporting nearly a center of the detection element, and a package substrate housing the... | 02/15/2011 |
| 7805993 | Operating method for a Coriolis gyro, and evaluation/control electronics which are suitable for this purpose An operating method for a Coriolis gyro. Digital read signals are produced that represent a measure of the instantaneous amplitudes/frequencies of the stimulation oscillation/read oscillation of the gyro resonator. Force signals are applied to the resonator. The for... | 10/05/2010 |
| 7694561 | Rate-of-turn sensor A method for operation of and simultaneous analysis of a rate-of-turn sensor, comprising an oscillator element and a Coriolis element arranged on the oscillation element is disclosed, comprising the following method steps: generation of a digital operating signal wi... | 04/13/2010 |
| 7513155 | Inertial sensor Four sensor units (SUA1 to SUA4) are disposed symmetrically about a point, on both top and bottom and left and right centering around one point of a support (15e). Furthermore, four sensor units (SUA1 to SUA4) are designed s... | 04/07/2009 |
| 7481109 | Inertial measurement system and method with bias cancellation System having one or more inertial sensors in which one or more of the sensor input axes are modulated in orientation about an axis substantially perpendicular to the input, or sensitive, axis of the sensor and, in some embodiments, by also enhancing the accuracy of... | 01/27/2009 |
| 7426859 | Motion sensor and method for detecting motion A motion sensor may detect linear and/or angular acceleration and/or angular velocity of a body relative to one axis, two orthogonal axes or three orthogonal axes. Movement of the body or reference structure may be detected relative to one or more spinning rotors. T... | 09/23/2008 |
| 7401495 | Activity monitoring An activity monitor is provided that corrects for the effects of motion external to the entity being monitored. For example, the activity monitor can overcome the effects of vehicular travel. ... | 07/22/2008 |
| 7397172 | Piezoelectric resonator element, piezoelectric device and gyro sensor A piezoelectric resonator element, comprises: a base made of a piezoelectric material; at least a pair of resonating arms provided in a unified manner with the base and extending in parallel with each other from the base; a portion defining a long groove provided to... | 07/08/2008 |
| 7367237 | MEMS vascular sensor A micromachined sensor for measuring vascular parameters, such as fluid shear stress, includes a substrate having a front-side surface, and a backside surface opposite the front-side surface. The sensor includes a diaphragm overlying a cavity etched within the subst... | 05/06/2008 |
| 7363814 | Multi-axial angular velocity sensor An angular velocity sensor for detecting angular velocity about a Z-axis in an XYZ coordinate system has a substrate oscillator, a flexible member for connecting the oscillator to a casing, a device for oscillating the oscillator in an X-axis direction, and a detect... | 04/29/2008 |
| 7363717 | System and method for using rotation sensors within a borehole A system and method for using a survey tool within a borehole is provided. The survey tool includes a plurality of rotation sensors each having a sensing axis and a direction of least acceleration sensitivity. The sensing axes of the plurality of rotation sensors ar... | 04/29/2008 |
| 7360455 | Force detector and acceleration detector and method of manufacturing the same An electrode layer is formed on the upper surface of a first substrate, and a processing for partially removing the substrate is carried out in order to allow the substrate to have flexibility. To the lower surface of the first substrate, a second substrate is conne... | 04/22/2008 |
| 7357025 | Micromachined apparatus with co-linear drive arrays A mass includes a first set of drive fingers interdigitated with a first array of fixed drive fingers and a second set of drive fingers interdigitated with a second array of fixed drive fingers. Each array of fixed drive fingers is affixed to a substrate using a plu... | 04/15/2008 |
| 7353705 | Oscillation type intertial force sensor The oscillation type inertial force sensor includes an oscillator arranged to detect an inertial force, an oscillation circuit unit arranged to drive the oscillator, and a signal processing circuit unit arranged to generate a signal according to the magnitude of the... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7355318 | Micromachined device utilizing electrostatic comb drives to filter mechanical vibrations A micromachined device for filtering mechanical vibrations caused by an external disturbance is disclosed. The device can include a first electrostatic vertical comb drive assembly having a first array of stationary elements and a second array of movable elements co... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7352117 | Piezoelectric vibrator A tuning fork type piezoelectric vibrator is provided with vibrating arms which can improve shock resistance while suppressing a CI value to a small value. A first groove (base end side) and a second groove (tip side) extend along a longitudinal direction from a bas... | 04/01/2008 |
| 7347095 | Integral resonator gyroscope The present invention discloses an inertial sensor having an integral resonator. A typical sensor comprises a planar mechanical resonator for sensing motion of the inertial sensor and a case for housing the resonator. The resonator and a wall of the case are defined... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7347094 | Coupling apparatus for inertial sensors A coupling apparatus allows anti-phase movements of inertial sensor element frames along parallel axes but substantially prevents in-phase movements of the frames. The coupling apparatus includes a bar coupled between first and second sensor element frames and at le... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7334491 | Sensor arrangement, in particular a micro-mechanical sensor arrangement A sensor array, in particular a micromechanical sensor array, and methods for manufacturing the sensor array are provided, which sensor array includes a sensor section for supplying certain sensor signals, and a cover section provided on the sensor section to form a... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7325454 | Acceleration/angular velocity sensor unit A longitudinal G sensor 51 and a roll rate sensor 54 are mounted onto a back surface 61b of a substrate 61 in parallel with an X-axis and a lateral G sensor 52 and a pitch rate sensor 55 are mounted thereon in paralle... | 02/05/2008 |
| 7320253 | Stress detection method for sensor device with multiple axis sensor and sensor device employing this method The present invention provides the stress detection method for force sensor device with multiple axis sensor device and force sensor device employing this method, whose installation angle is arbitrary. The stress detection method includes, first and second force sen... | 01/22/2008 |
| 7308827 | Integrated gyroscope and temperature sensor A gyroscope and temperature sensor are formed on a single chip using SOI-MEMS technology. The temperature sensor has an array of resistors to accurately detect the temperature of the gyroscope in temperatures and conditions that can range from extreme heat to extrem... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7305880 | Resonant micro-electro-mechanical system with analog driving A resonant micro-electro-mechanical system includes a microstructure having a mass which is free to oscillate in accordance with a predetermined degree of freedom, and a driving device coupled to the mass for maintaining the mass in oscillation at a resonance freque... | 12/11/2007 |
| 7302848 | Force compensated comb drive A force compensated comb drive for a microelectromechanical system includes a MEMS mechanism for providing an output signal representative of a physical quantity; a comb drive for actuating the MEMS mechanism; a comb drive circuit for providing a drive signal to the... | 12/04/2007 |
| 7291825 | Capacitance type physical quantity sensor The capacitance type physical quantity sensor has a sensing part including a capacitor element generating a capacitance signal representing a magnitude of a physical quantity to be sensed, and a sensor circuit including a charge amplifier converting the capacitance ... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7290435 | Method and apparatus for electronic cancellation of quadrature error Methods and apparatus are provided for detecting a rate of rotation. In one implementation, the method includes vibrating a proof mass at a pre-determined frequency in a drive axis. In response to a rotation, sensing an amount of deflection of the proof mass in an a... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7287427 | Rate-of-rotation sensor having frequency adjustment A yaw-rate sensor having a resonant driving frequency and a resonant Coriolis frequency. In addition, the yaw-rate sensor has at least one operating voltage, of which the resonant Coriolis frequency is a function. The resonant Coriolis frequency is adjusted to the r... | 10/30/2007 |
| 7287428 | Inertial sensor with a linear array of sensor elements An inertial sensor includes at least one pair of sensor elements arranged in a linear array. Each sensor element has a frame and a movable mass suspended within the frame. The frames of each pair of sensor elements may be coupled so that the frames are allowed to mo... | 10/30/2007 |
| 7282834 | Micro electrical mechanical system (MEMS) tuning using focused ion beams A method for tuning an electro-mechanical device such as a MEMS device is disclosed. The method comprises operating a MEMS device in a depressurized system and using FIB micromachining to remove a portion of the MEMS device. Additionally, a method for tuning a plura... | 10/16/2007 |
| 7279761 | Post-release capacitance enhancement in micromachined devices and a method of performing the same A MEMS device which utilizes a capacitive sensor or actuator is enhancement by initially fabricating the capacitive assembly which comprises the sensor or actuator as two sets of interdigitated fingers in a noninterdigitated configuration. One of the two sets of fin... | 10/09/2007 |
| 7275433 | Micro-electro-mechanical sensor with force feedback loop A micro-electro-mechanical sensor includes a microstructure having a mass which is movable with respect to a rest position, according to a predetermined degree of freedom, and a displacement-detecting device for detecting a displacement of the mass according to the ... | 10/02/2007 |
| 7268646 | Temperature controlled MEMS resonator and method for controlling resonator frequency There are many inventions described and illustrated herein. In one aspect, the present invention is directed to a temperature compensated microelectromechanical resonator as well as fabricating, manufacturing, providing and/or controlling microelectromechanical reso... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7256926 | Optical deflector An optical deflector includes a magnet unit, which generates a magnetic field, and a movable plate unit, which is placed in the magnetic field. The movable plate unit has an inner movable plate having a reflecting surface, an outer movable plate, two inner torsion b... | 08/14/2007 |
| 7249488 | Method for detecting a zero-point error of a coriolis gyroscope and coriolis gyroscope using said method In a method for determining the zero-point error of a Coriolis gyro, the resonator of the Coriolis gyro has a disturbance force applied to it such that a change in the stimulation oscillation of the resonator is brought about. A change in the read oscillation of the... | 07/31/2007 |
| 7250112 | Method of making an X-Y axis dual-mass tuning fork gyroscope with vertically integrated electronics and wafer-scale hermetic packaging A method for making an angular velocity sensor having two masses which are laterally disposed in an X-Y plane and indirectly connected to a frame is provided. The two masses are linked together by a linkage such that they necessarily move in opposite directions alon... | 07/31/2007 |
| 7246512 | Method for determining a zero-point error in a vibratory gyroscope A method for determination of the zero error of a Coriolis gyro. Appropriate disturbance forces are applied to the resonator of the Coriolis gyro such that at least one natural oscillation of the resonator is stimulated that differs from the stimulating and read osc... | 07/24/2007 |