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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7437224 | Target acquisition control for spacecraft gimballed payload A method and apparatus for controlling a gimbaled platform (108). The method comprises the steps of computing an acquisition phase gimbal angle rate command ωcmd—Acq (530) from a measured LOS angle error... | 10/14/2008 |
| 7410130 | Star-tracker-based attitude determination for spinning spacecraft A method of determining the attitude of a spinning spacecraft is provided. The method includes stabilizing the spacecraft, initializing the attitude of the spacecraft using star tracker data, and estimating the attitude of the spacecraft. ... | 08/12/2008 |
| 7409292 | Method and system for degimbalization of vehicle navigation data A method and system for degimbalization of sensor outputs is provided. Data output from an embedded GPS inertial navigation system (EGI), which is mounted within a gimbaled system on a vehicle, is processed to provide degimballed navigation data. Generally, motion o... | 08/05/2008 |
| 7370833 | Method and system for determining a singularity free momentum path A method for avoiding singularities in the movement of a set of collinear CMGs in an array of CMGs in a spacecraft is provided. First, a command to adjust an orientation of the spacecraft is received. Then, the momentum needed from the set of collinear CMGs is deter... | 05/13/2008 |
| 7367529 | Momentum tube for distributed actuation An spacecraft control system is provided that includes a tube and a plurality of microwheels. The plurality of microwheels is disposed within the tube. Each microwheel has a first stator wafer, a second stator wafer, and a rotor wafer disposed therebetween. The firs... | 05/06/2008 |
| 7337097 | Dynamic modeling technique for the deployment of large satellite antennas A method for modeling a structure deployed on a spacecraft. The method includes determining a geometric shape that resembles the structure in a fully deployed configuration; generating time functions for a change in shape of at least one structural component of the ... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7315781 | System and method for determining orientation based on solar positioning Determination of the orientation of a unit is based on solar positioning. An actual measurement of the position of the sun is taken and compared to a theoretical determination of the position of the sun. By comparing the actual and theoretical positions, the orienta... | 01/01/2008 |
| 7310578 | Fast access, low memory, pair catalog A system (18) includes: a) A vehicle (12) includes an attitude or angular velocity control system (38), a plurality of star trackers or star sensors (22) each having a field of view (28); b) a memory (30) having a star catal... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7305286 | System and method for gyro enhanced vertical flight information A flight instrument and associated method where vertical speed information is combined with gyro information to produce gyro enhanced vertical speed information that is displayed to a pilot. The gyro information may include a pitch rate gyro and may include an azimu... | 12/04/2007 |
| 7286911 | Aircraft pilot assistance system and method A system and method for assisting a pilot to recover the aircraft from a variety of dangerous situations involving one or more of the following: altitude, airspeed, attitude, roll rate, and a partial equipment failure in the control panel. In accordance with the inv... | 10/23/2007 |
| 7258306 | Thermal deformation determination for payload pointing using space-based beacon A system and associated method for compensating for thermal deformation of a spaced-based structure having a spacecraft payload. The system including a beacon source coupled to a first spacecraft for transmitting a first signal and a beacon sensor coupled to a secon... | 08/21/2007 |
| 7246775 | System and method of substantially autonomous geosynchronous time-optimal orbit transfer Method of and system for on-board substantially autonomous control for transferring a spacecraft from an initial orbit to a final geosynchronous orbit, by a trajectory that minimizes remaining transfer time and orbit transfer fuel. The spacecraft determines its orbi... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7246776 | Method and system for CMG array singularity avoidance The present method provides a method for avoiding singularities in the movement of CMGs in an array of CMGs in a spacecraft. In a first step, a torque command representing a desired torque to produce an attitude adjustment for the spacecraft is received. Next, a ran... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7248948 | Apparatus and method for estimating attitude using inertial measurement equipment An apparatus for estimating attitude using an inertia measuring apparatus comprising: a Kalman filter 3 adapted to receive a quantity of state ω(t) from the inertia measuring apparatus 1, input the quantity of state into a predetermined system equatio... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7227114 | Method of estimating the attitude of a space device with improved precision A method of determining the attitude of a spacecraft is provided. The method may include sensing the projections of a plurality of stars on a sensor, converting the projections into sensor-star directions, and determining the angular values of the spacecraft relativ... | 06/05/2007 |
| 7224311 | System and method for visualization of attitude and attitude/position dependent data A system and method for visualization of attitude dependent data is disclosed. An attitude sphere is defined around an object of interest located at the center. Grid points are defined on the surface of the attitude sphere to represent directions. An attitude depend... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7216036 | Integrated inertial stellar attitude sensor An integrated inertial stellar attitude sensor for an aerospace vehicle includes a star camera system, a gyroscope system, a controller system for synchronously integrating an output of said star camera system and an output of said gyroscope system into a stream of ... | 05/08/2007 |
| 7185858 | Spacecraft gyro calibration system A method of calibrating a gyro (42) of a spacecraft (14) may include determining a yaw attitude residual of the spacecraft. Roll gyro bias residual is determined in response to the yaw attitude residual. The gyro (42) is calibrated in response t... | 03/06/2007 |
| 7149611 | Virtual sensor mast A virtual sensor mast for a ground vehicle and a method for operating a ground vehicle using a virtual sensor mast are disclosed. The virtual sensor mast includes an unmanned airborne vehicle capable of lifting itself from the ground vehicle upon deployment therefro... | 12/12/2006 |
| 7149610 | Momentum estimator for on-station momentum control A method and apparatus for estimating spacecraft momentum is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of generating a plurality of spacecraft momentum measurements, fitting the plurality of spacecraft momentum measurements to a parametric model of a spacecraft mome... | 12/12/2006 |
| 7134630 | Thermal deformation determination for payload pointing using space-based beacon A system and associated method for compensating for thermal deformation of a spaced-based structure having a spacecraft payload. The system including a beacon source coupled to a first spacecraft for transmitting a first signal and a beacon sensor coupled to a secon... | 11/14/2006 |
| 7132936 | Angular rate sensor A sensor for measuring yaw rate or roll rate of an automotive vehicle comprises a freely rotating inertial disk and an angular rate sensor responsive to the rotation of the inertial disk relative to a housing. In one embodiment the inertial disk presents an alternat... | 11/07/2006 |
| 7124001 | Relative attitude estimator for multi-payload attitude determination A method and apparatus for estimating a slave payload attitude is disclosed. The method includes accepting a plurality of slave payload attitude measurements, deriving a model of the relative attitude of the slave payload and a master payload attitude at least in pa... | 10/17/2006 |
| 7110915 | Multiple concurrent recursive least squares identification with application to on-line spacecraft mass-property identification The present invention is a method for identifying unknown parameters in a system having a set of governing equations describing its behavior that cannot be put into regression form with the unknown parameters linearly represented. In this method, the vector of unkno... | 09/19/2006 |
| 7107007 | Positioning system for a geostationary satellite A positioning system for a geostationary satellite according to the present invention comprises a plurality of outer orbit satellites revolving around the earth in equatorial orbit and polar orbit having higher altitude than that of the geostationary satellite; and ... | 09/12/2006 |
| 7098433 | Apparatus and method for estimating and adjusting deviations in an optical system based on wavefront aberrations ascribable to misalignment An optical system deviation estimating apparatus includes an erected/inverted attitude setting means 9 for changing dispositional attitude of an optical system under test, a non-interferometric type wavefront measuring means 10 for measuring wavefronts... | 08/29/2006 |
| 7090170 | In-orbit satellite sensor alignment determination A sensor alignment system and method is provided that facilitates the precise alignment determination of satellite sensors. The system and method utilizes an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to facilitate alignment determination of multiples sensors on a satellite. T... | 08/15/2006 |
| 7079944 | System and method for determining orientation based on solar positioning Determination of the orientation of a unit is based on solar positioning. An actual measurement of the position of the sun is taken and compared to a theoretical determination of the position of the sun. By comparing the actual and theoretical positions, the orienta... | 07/18/2006 |
| 7075048 | Omni-directional radiation source and object locator A method for determining azimuth and elevation angles of a radiation source or other physical objects located anywhere within an cylindrical field of view makes use of an omni-directional imaging system comprising of reflective surfaces, an image sensor and an optio... | 07/11/2006 |
| 7076341 | Autonomous manoeuvring for spinning spacecraft An inventive autonomous active manoeuvring method and system 1 for spinning spacecraft is provided having a capability to enhance the AOCMS performance of passive spinning satellites and to fulfil the emerging autonomy requirements applicable to new generatio... | 07/11/2006 |
| 7062363 | Refinement of spacecraft angular velocity and attitude estimates using star data A method and apparatus for refining a spacecraft state estimate, such as an attitude estimate or an angular velocity estimate, is disclosed. The method computes a plurality equations using residuals describing the difference between observed star positions and predi... | 06/13/2006 |
| 6987257 | Attitude determination system and method An attitude determination system and method is provided that includes at least two sensor sets. Each sensor set is configured to detect electromagnetic radiation, such as light of a known frequency. Specifically, each sensor set is configured to detect electromagnet... | 01/17/2006 |
| 6961643 | System and method for gyro enhanced vertical flight information A system and associated method where a vertical flight dynamic sensor is stabilized using pitch rate gyro information combined with azimuth rate gyro information corrected by scaling the azimuth rate gyro information in accordance with feedback derived from the diff... | 11/01/2005 |
| 6957020 | Optical inter-satellite link (OISL) gimbal An optical inter-satellite link (OISL) gimbal 10 that is particularly suited for directing an optical beam in an optical inter-satellite communications system is disclosed. The OISL gimbal 10 includes an azimuth drive housing 20, a generally cyl... | 10/18/2005 |
| 6934591 | Figure eight hysteresis control method and follow-up system A control system (102) operates within a dynamic range, and a follow-up system (104) is commanded to reduce a positional error between the follow-up system and the control system when the dynamic range is exceeded. A linear follow-up command may be ini... | 08/23/2005 |
| 6921049 | System for counteracting a disturbance in a spacecraft A system for counteracting a disturbance in a spacecraft includes a biasing apparatus that is coupled to the spacecraft and a spacecraft controller within the spacecraft. The disturbance has a known sign, magnitude and time. The biasing apparatus controls the biasin... | 07/26/2005 |
| 6910660 | Laser guidance system A guidance system includes a first laser device coupled to a mount, the first laser device adapted to generate a first laser signal having a first wavelength. A second laser device is also coupled to the mount and directed substantially parallel with the first laser... | 06/28/2005 |
| 6892987 | Predicting, bounding and mitigating satellite attitude disturbances arising from infrared earth sensors for satellites in inclined, elliptical orbits Satellite earth sensors (ES) generate scan lines, areas of detected infrared information gathered across the view of the earth by the satellite. The length of these scan lines is utilized by the satellite Attitude Control Subsystem (ACS) to determine the satellite p... | 05/17/2005 |
| 6883757 | System and method for increasing the roll offset operating range for a spacecraft A method for increasing the roll offset operating range for a spacecraft using an earth sensor operating in single scan mode includes the steps of moving the spacecraft to a first roll position, which has a roll angle that will cause the earth sensor to have a desir... | 04/26/2005 |
| 6868316 | Satellite constellation system A satellite constellation system, including a plurality of satellites in relatively close proximity to each other so that line-of-sight communications can be maintained at all times between adjacent satellites. The satellites are in closely-spaced orbits with increm... | 03/15/2005 |