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 |
| 8131387 | Integrated high-efficiency microwave sourcing control process A technique for controlling instrumentation in an automatic test system includes providing a group of hardware resources that can be configured in a variety of ways to realize different instrument configurations, which generally correspond to different traditional i... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8121709 | Method for comparing, an automation system and a controller The invention relates to a method for comparing variable values obtained from different versions of an application program in an automated system. An input signal obtained from an automated process is inputted to at least two different versions of the application pr... | 02/21/2012 |
| 7966082 | Method for operating a calculating unit and signal for processing in a calculating unit The invention relates to a method for operating a calculating unit, whereon at least one part of the signals and a marking relating to the quality of the signals and an attribute relating to a current transmission frequency of the marking are attributed. The inventi... | 06/21/2011 |
| 7689301 | Safety control device, safety control system, and method for detecting communication error A safety control device for ensuring safety of an object to be controlled, including: communication unit which is used for communication with another safety control device and uses a frame including a test bit string T having correlation with a base bit string B; an... | 03/30/2010 |
| 7437200 | Software based control system for nuclear reactor standby liquid control (SLC) logic processor A method and system is provided for a nuclear reactor safety related application. The method includes executing two forms of a same application-specific logic, one of the two forms implemented as hardware logic, and the other of the two forms implemented as software... | 10/14/2008 |
| 7424641 | Control system and method for validating operation of the control system A control system and a method for validating operation of the control system are provided. The control system has a first controller operably communicating with a second controller. The first and second controllers have first and second read-only memories, respectiv... | 09/09/2008 |
| 7373559 | Method and system for proactive drive replacement for high availability storage systems Methods for preventing the failure of disk drives in storage systems are disclosed. A system and a computer program product for preventing the failure are also disclosed. Factors relating to the aging or early onset of errors in a disk drive are monitored. These fac... | 05/13/2008 |
| 7330502 | Input/output circuit and semiconductor integrated circuit An input/output circuit includes a reference clock generator configured to generate a reference clock. A signal transmitter is configured to transmit serial data in synchronization with one of the reference clock and a test clock. A signal-receiving circuit is confi... | 02/12/2008 |
| 7293148 | Method for reliably verifying a memory area of a microcontroller in a control unit and control unit having a protected microcontroller A method is provided for controlling a microcontroller in a control unit in a motor vehicle, having a processor core, at least one read-only memory area and at least one rewritable memory area, at least one control program which is intended to be processed by the pr... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7269465 | Control system for controlling safety-critical processes There is provided a control system for controlling safety-critical processes that includes a fieldbus, a bus master for controlling a communication via the fieldbus, at least one signal unit for linking to at least one of the safety-critical processes, and a first c... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7246264 | Remote ultrasound system diagnostics A remote diagnostics system for an ultrasound system is described comprising a laptop computer for a serviceperson which can diagnose, test, modify or upgrade an ultrasound system either on-site or from a remote location. Diagnostic information obtained by the lapto... | 07/17/2007 |
| 7200450 | Diagnostic system for an appliance A system and method of determining and displaying a failure in an electronic appliance control system employs diagnostic codes which indicate both a primary system where a fault occurs and a subsystem in fault. The diagnostic codes are displayed so that repair perso... | 04/03/2007 |
| 7194645 | Method and apparatus for autonomic policy-based thermal management in a data processing system A method, apparatus and computer instructions are provided to autonomically monitor and adjust system characteristics based on a customer optimization goal specified in a policy or profile. An autonomic management component is implemented in firmware comprising a se... | 03/20/2007 |
| 7187754 | Operating method and computer program for a medical installation In an operating method for a medical installation, in particular an x-ray installation. In activation state of the medical installation, a control and evaluation device determines, upon input of a control command, a useful image of a subject. For this purpose, the c... | 03/06/2007 |
| 7134104 | Method of selectively building redundant logic structures to improve fault tolerance A new hardware description language (HDL) extension at the register-transfer level (RTL) for designating particular logic functions as fault tolerant and a method of implementing a fault redundant scheme for the fault tolerant logic functions. Code (20) is wr... | 11/07/2006 |
| 7133727 | System and method for continuous online safety and reliability monitoring A system and method for continuous online safety and reliability monitoring is disclosed. The method includes the steps of obtaining operating information about at least one of a plurality of instrumented function components, which are part of an instrumented functi... | 11/07/2006 |
| 7120552 | Method for activating the functions of an electrical apparatus A method is proposed that is used for activating the functions of an electrical device, preferably a car radio. A test routine stored in a storage area allocated to the device is executed by a control unit of the electrical device. The control unit activates at leas... | 10/10/2006 |
| 7117048 | Safety controller with safety response time monitoring A safety controller having a total worst case propagation delay, exceeding the required propagation delay required by a safety process, may be used to control the safety process by monitoring actual delays in signal processing in the safety controller and moving to ... | 10/03/2006 |
| 7085225 | System and method for providing detection of faults and switching of fabrics in a redundant-architecture communication system A system and method of selecting a routing datapath between an active datapath and a redundant datapath for a communication device are provided. The system and method are embodied in a first step of monitoring for a fault occurring in the active datapath and the red... | 08/01/2006 |
| 7069090 | Systems and methods for providing variable output feedback to a user of a household appliance An embodiment of the present invention uses an on-board microcontroller of a household appliance to receive signals from a directionless encoder attached to a knob for receiving user input and processing the signals from the direction encoder according to a control ... | 06/27/2006 |
| 7047438 | Accommodation of media defect growth on a data storage medium through dynamic remapping An apparatus, program product and method of mapping defects on a data storage medium analyze one or more previously-identified defects on a storage medium to detect any growth in those defects over time, such that any detected growth of a previously-identified defec... | 05/16/2006 |
| 7039471 | Method and device for calculating the steady-state time point of a controller A device for calculating the steady state behavior of a controller includes an amount generating unit for generating the amount of deviation of the regulator, a first threshold value calculation unit that detects whether the amount of deviation of the regulator has ... | 05/02/2006 |
| 7039474 | Packaging system and method therefor A system for monitoring the condition of a packaging machine during operation and diagnosing potential problems in the performance of the machine. The system comprises an input device, an output device and a processing unit that supports a user interface presented b... | 05/02/2006 |
| 7017156 | System for computing an estimate execution time by totaling the time value base on an architecture or a software operating environment Access to computer system resources is regulated by computing an estimated execution time for an operation which seeks to use the resources. Once computed, the estimated execution time is used to make decisions about granting the operation access to the computer sys... | 03/21/2006 |
| 7011613 | Spindle comprising a data storage element The invention relates to a spindle (9) for a machine tool, having a housing (12) to accommodate an electric motor (11) and a shaft (13) driven by the latter and having a tool holder for a tool (10) for machining workpieces, at leas... | 03/14/2006 |
| 7010376 | Diagnostic for poorly tuned control loops A method and apparatus to perform an automatic diagnosis for the poor performance of a control loop, and to determine whether or not the malfunctioning is caused principally by a poor adjustment of the controller tuning parameters. The method makes use of the fact t... | 03/07/2006 |
| 7003558 | Method and system for communicating information and controlling equipment according to a standard protocol between two computers A system for communicating according to a standard communication protocol for process control includes a plurality of interconnected computers. The system includes a module that permits communication of information between computers that communicate with process con... | 02/21/2006 |
| 6988012 | Medical-technical system and operating method therefor A control device for a medical-technical system automatically acquires a status of at least one element of the medical-technical system and compares it to a reference status. When a comparison of the statuses meets a status condition, the control device implements a... | 01/17/2006 |
| 6947797 | Method and system for diagnosing machine malfunctions A system (830) and method (800) for diagnosing a malfunctioning machine. A fault event is selected (806) together with sequential operating parameter data (808) from a selectively focused time interval about the fault event for evaluation... | 09/20/2005 |
| 6925335 | Real-time alert mechanism for monitoring and controlling field assets via wireless and internet technologies An apparatus and system are disclosed for the real-time monitoring and control of field assets. The monitoring device, operable to couple to a field asset, may be designed to leverage one or more technologies included in the field asset or as a stand-alone unit and ... | 08/02/2005 |
| 6915173 | Advance failure prediction Failure prediction for complex processes is performed utilizing one or more nonlinear regression models to relate operational variable values measured at two or more times to predicted process metric values and maintenance variable values. ... | 07/05/2005 |
| 6913453 | Apparatus for protecting thermocouple circuits in thermoplastic injection moulding equipment An apparatus for protecting thermocouple circuits in an injection molding system includes a protection circuit for each thermocouple pair. The protection circuit includes a resettable fuse disposed in series with each thermocouple wire for preventing high leakage cu... | 07/05/2005 |
| 6909923 | Safety communication on a single backplane Safety level error detection comparable to that provided by redundant wired safety relays is obtained on a backplane of a programmable logic controller or the like by a combination of error detection methods that in sum provide the requisite level of error detection... | 06/21/2005 |
| 6901303 | Method and apparatus for controlling fans and power supplies to provide accelerated run-in testing A method and apparatus controls fans and power supplies to provide accelerated run-in testing. By modulating fans to increase case temperatures and adjusting power supplies to provide “worst case” voltages, a computer system can be subjected to a run-in tests un... | 05/31/2005 |
| 6888459 | RFID based security system A system and method for constructing a security system for a building using at least one RFID reader to communicate with at least one RFID transponder to provide the radio link between each of a number of openings and a controller capable of causing an alert in the ... | 05/03/2005 |
| 6826433 | Failsafe data output system and automation system having the same An apparatus for and a method of operating an automation system. A processing unit subjects useful information which is received via a telegram to a user designated logic operation and drives an output channel in accordance with a result of the logic operation. The ... | 11/30/2004 |
| 6813527 | High integrity control system architecture using digital computing platforms with rapid recovery A control system architecture suitably includes sufficient computation redundancy and control command management to isolate and recover a faulted processor and/or to recover all processing units in the redundant system without adverse effects. Computational redundan... | 11/02/2004 |
| 6807477 | Electronic control system and method having monitor program monitoring function An ECU is equipped with an engine control microcomputer for executing engine control and a throttle control microcomputer for executing throttle control. The engine control microcomputer is programmed to execute a monitor program. A time in the engine control microc... | 10/19/2004 |
| 6701198 | Safety network for industrial controller allowing initialization on standard networks A highly reliable industrial control system is produced such as may use a standard network for configuration by symmetrically transmitting configuration data to intercommunicating controller components. The configuration data provides a unique identificat... | 03/02/2004 |
| 6684111 | Apparatus for power failure identification in a programmable household appliance and method for identifying power failure An apparatus for power failure identification in a programmable household appliance includes an electronic program control apparatus having a first device disposed upstream of the mains switch on the power supply system side and a second device disposed d... | 01/27/2004 |
