65results about How to "Low-cost solution" patented technology

The subject matter of the present invention is a load breaker arrangement (1) for switching on and off a DC current of a DC current circuit in a photovoltaic plant with a semiconductor switching element (4) to avoid a switching arc, there being provided an electronic control unit (5) configured such that one or more signals are received by the control unit, and the load breaker arrangement (1) being configured such that in at least one current-carrying line of the DC current circuit there is galvanic separation by a switching contact that is automatically controllable by the control unit (5) in the switched-off condition and one or more control signals being transmitted to the load breaker arrangement (1) and a semiconductor switching element (4) interrupting the DC current so that the switching contact is de-energized, wherebythe signals are flaw signals that are received in case of a flaw in the PV generator, inverter or on the AC side, the DC current circuit being automatically switched on or off by the control signals in case of at least one flaw,said arrangement being configured such that, during switch off,said semiconductor switching element (4) is at first closed in a first step,the switching contacts (K1, K2) of a first switching means are opened in a second step for the DC current to flow through said semiconductor switching element (4),said semiconductor switching element (4) being again opened in a third step andswitching contacts (K1, K2) of a second switching means being opened in order to cause galvanic separation to occurand that an additional manually operable load breaker (8) is connected, said manually operable load breaker (8) being a manually breakable DC current connecting system with plug contacts for photovoltaic plants that is provided with an electronic arc quenching system.

The present invention aims to simplify stitching algorithm which generates horizontal panoramic image. The image pickup device of the present invention comprises a plurality of lenses and positioning means. Said positioning means positions each lens so that the FOV (Field Of View) intersection points of all lenses are aligned in vertical direction. Accordingly, the horizontal parallax does not exist in the image picked up by the camera system and the stitching point remains the same for the objects at different distances.

A solar energy collection and storage system and a method of collecting and storing solar energy. The system includes a device for focusing solar energy onto a reaction chamber for the conversion of metal hydride to liquid metal and hydrogen, a metal / metal hydride chamber containing a metal / metal hydride mixture, a hydrogen storage system using hydrides and a thermo-cline for recovering the thermal energy from the hydrogen when it is cooled from 2000 F to ambient conditions for storage.

A solar powered apparatus that includes a battery, at least one photovoltaic cell (which may be part of a solar module comprising multiple photovoltaic cells), and a DC-capable AC appliance, such as a compact fluorescent light. The solar powered apparatus may also include a first DC to DC converter that receives a first electrical signal from the at least one photovoltaic cell and provides a charging signal to the battery, and a second DC to DC converter that receives a second electrical signal from the battery and provides a DC power signal to the DC-capable AC appliance.

There is provided a communication system including a transmitting section and a receiving section which includes a plurality of receivers. The transmitting section includes a communication unit which receives a plurality of signals respectively from the plurality of receivers, and stores a plurality of time-reversed signals corresponding to the received plurality of signals with respect to the plurality of receivers, and a first conversion unit which converts, by a first factor, a plurality of information sequences to be respectively transmitted to the plurality of receivers and forward the plurality of converted information sequences to the communication unit. The communication unit generates, based on the plurality of converted information sequences, a plurality of output signals to be respectively transmitted to the plurality of receivers, each of the plurality of the output signals including a location-specific signature unique to the corresponding receiver.

A method of detecting GPS signal tampering uses two GPS receivers. A first receiver measures carrier phases of two or more satellite signals and of a tampered signal. A second receiver measures carrier phases of the two or more satellite signals and the tampered signal. A baseline vector between the receiver antennas is measured. Direction cosine vectors of the two or more satellite signals are computed and a dot product is computed from the baseline vector to translate measurements made at antennas of the GPS receivers to a virtual zero baseline condition. The carrier phase measurements are double differenced to obtain double difference residuals. A test statistic of the double difference residuals is computed and tested for phase coherency. An inconsistency in measured signals is flagged when there is an inconsistency in phase coherence indicating the tampered signal is present.

The present invention is directed to a semiconductor laser device comprising a first resonator section for resonating an optical resonator signal for providing an optical output signal at an output of said laser device, wherein said first resonator section is arranged for selectively resonating at a plurality of discrete output wavelengths, and wherein said laser device further comprises a second resonator section operatively connected to said first resonator section, said second resonator section being arranged for providing an optical feedback signal at a feedback wavelength to said first resonator section for locking said first resonator section into resonating at a selected output wavelength of said discrete output wavelengths, which selected output wavelength corresponds to said feedback wavelength for providing said optical output signal.

A digital display apparatus (10) using a spatial light modulator (30) projects a monochrome or multicolor image onto a display surface (40) for diagnostic imaging applications. The image can be displayed on a direct-view display surface (40) or, with the image mirrored, on a display screen. A single spatial light modulator (30) could serve for all component colors, with multiplexed color channels. Alternately, additional spatial light modulators (30) could be used, either to obtain higher image resolution or to improve speed and performance. An optional variable filter (28) could be used to selectively control the relative transmission level of color components for successive color components.

A system having a processor is programmed to realize practical quantitative assessment of similarity of categorized data. The category data may be stored in a memory as a category graph comprising a graphical data structure having plural parent and child category nodes connected by directed edges, such that sequences of connected category nodes represent hierarchical relations between categories of objects. A similarity metric of a selected pair of categories may be derived, in one embodiment, by analysis of ancestors of the selected pair of categories, including consideration of closest common ancestors in the category graph. Efficiency improvements may include transforming a directed cyclic graph to a directed acyclic graph, and optionally deriving a subgraph to reduce the number of categories under consideration. The software methods may further comprise computing a similarity metric for a pair of objects based on the similarity score for the corresponding pair of categories.

An optical network terminal (ONT) for use in an optical access network and comprising: an optical transceiver arranged to communicate with an optical line terminal using a wavelength which is modulated to carry sub-channels; a second transceiver arranged to communicate with a number of subscriber equipment using respective subscriber equipment channels; the ONT arranged to automatically map each subscriber equipment channel to a respective sub-channel of the wavelength without using an address associated with the respective subscriber equipment.

The present invention provides a noninvasive and portable medical monitoring system for monitoring the change in time of the electrical impedance of a portion of a living body, such as the lungs or the brain with an inbuilt data acquisition system and a PC motherboard. The present invention also provides a computer implementable method for monitoring and measurement of cardiac output and blood flow index using impedance plythesmographic techniques.

The invention relates to a method of executing a real-time task by a digital signal processor using a cache memory, an overall duration being allocated for executing said task and any interrupts coming from peripherals associated with the processor, wherein the overall duration is subdivided into a plurality of time intervals comprising at least one masked period during which said task is executed and interrupts are made to wait and are grouped together, and at least one non-masked period during which said task is suspended and the group of interrupts is executed. The masked periods and the non-masked periods are defined by a hardware mechanism including a timer.

A method of cruise control for a vehicle includes the following steps: checking for cruise conditions, determining whether the vehicle is in cruise control mode, and if in cruise control mode, maintaining and controlling the cruising speed of the vehicle until an exit signal is detected; checking the throttle deviation, whereby if not in cruise control mode, the throttle deviation is checked to determine throttle stability; checking cruising speed, whereby if conditions for throttle stability are met, the speed deviation of the vehicle is calculated, and the cruising speed is set; checking the cruising alert for drivers as well as drivers' actions, whereby if conditions for cruising have been met, issuing a cruise control prompt to the driver, and if it is detected that the driver has released the throttle pedal, entering the vehicle into cruise control mode; whereas if the driver fails to release the throttle within a certain period of time after cruise conditions have been met, the next check for cruise conditions is carried out. A system is provided to perform the method. A cruise control which is low-cost, requires no control buttons, and offers a simple product structure is achieved.

The invention relates to an optoelectronic apparatus in which a shielding cage is integrated in a housing to reduce electromagnetic interference. The invention further relates to methods for production of an optoelectronic apparatus having a shielding cage integrated into a housing portion thereof.

A system for clock recovery in digital video communication includes a delay measurement block for generating PCR input signals and for continuously determining the time interval between successive PCR input signals. The system also includes a first storage device for generating a first PCR signal corresponding to the time interval between arrival of successive PCR input signals and a PCR inter-arrival time computation filtering device to determine the average time of arrival difference between successive PCR packets. The system further includes an error correction device for minimizing error in the average PCR difference between successive PCR packets, a controlled system clock generator coupled to the output of the error correction device to generate system clock, a second storage device for generating a first system clock output, and a controlled clock period difference computation element for computing the clock period difference between the first and second system clock outputs. The controlled clock period difference computation element is coupled at its output to the error correction device to form a feedback circuit to minimize error between the system clock output and successive PCR differences.

Geosynchronous surveillance is conducted by injecting one or more observer satellites into a retro sub or super geosynchronous orbit at approximately zero inclination. The observer satellite spins about an approximately North-South axis in an Earth frame of reference to sweep a sensor's FOV around the geobelt. Sensor time delay integration (TDI) is synchronized to the observer satellite's spin-rate and possibly the sum of the spin-rate and the target inertial LOS rate to realize longer integration times. This approach facilitates faster scans of the entire geobelt, more timely updates of the catalog of tracked objects and resolution of small and closely spaced objects. An inexpensive small-aperture body-fixed visible sensor may be used.

A method, control system and protective relay are provided for detecting faulted phases of transmission lines in an AC power system. The method includes sampling electric signals at one end of the transmission lines at a series of time points; computing instantaneous voltage values of electric signals at compensated points on the transmission lines from the values of the sampled electric signals based on a time domain lumped parameter differential equation for the transmission lines for the series of time points; recording the computed instantaneous voltage values of the electric signals; computing fault component or sudden-change of the instantaneous voltage values of the electrical signals; detecting the faulted phases or fault types by comparing the calculated fault component of the instantaneous voltage values at the preset compensated points; and generating signals indicating the faulted phases of fault types.

A method, system and computer program product is disclosed for intelligent data mining. The method comprises receiving an event from an application, assigning property weights to properties of the event, and building a query from these properties based on the property weights. The method further comprises assigning search engine weights to a group of search engines, selecting at least some of the search engines based on the search engine weights, and sending the built query to the selected search engines. Results from the selected search engines are stored in a knowledge repository and used to adjust the property weights and the search engine weights. The invention may be used to provide an analysis with information about a problem, and to manage a solutions database which can be used for problem determination. The invention provides a low cost solution for collecting relevant information from online sources.

A microcontroller has a compact 8-bit processor and a differential input sigma-delta ADC (SDADC). In a low-cost pyroelectric sensor motion detector application, a sensor output signal is supplied onto a second differential input of the SDADC. A first programmable internal reference voltage source supplies VREF1 via an internal signal path onto a first differential input of the SDADC. A second programmable internal reference voltage source supplies VREF2 onto a reference voltage input of the SDADC. VREF1 sets the center of the SDADC input sample window, thereby avoiding the need to provide an external AC blocking capacitor. VREF2 sets the size of the window. Proper window sizing and sample averaging and the high-resolution SDADC obviate the need for input signal amplification. Throughput requirements on the 8-bit processor are reduced by providing a hardware averager and associated DMA controller, thereby making the overall solution a low-cost, noise-insensitive, solution.

A reconfigurable thin film based dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) device is described for hitless switching of wavelengths by employing a reconfigurable filtering device. The reconfigurable filtering device is based on a mechanical switching of a filtering chip which has a thin film coated a first one-half of a first face for interference wavelength filtering and has a gold-mirror coated on a second one-half of the first face for high reflection.

Non-intrusive monitoring and workflow assessment to optimize manufacturing environments are described herein. The systems and method combines computer vision and energy load disaggregation to track worker activity and equipment usage and status. These events are then correlated to optimize workflows and energy efficiency.

The present invention is directed to a semiconductor laser device comprising a first resonator section for resonating an optical resonator signal for providing an optical output signal at an output of said laser device, wherein said first resonator section is arranged for selectively resonating at a plurality of discrete output wavelengths, and wherein said laser device further comprises a second resonator section operatively connected to said first resonator section, said second resonator section being arranged for providing an optical feedback signal at a feedback wavelength to said first resonator section for locking said first resonator section into resonating at a selected output wavelength of said discrete output wavelengths, which selected output wavelength corresponds to said feedback wavelength for providing said optical output signal.

A method for the automatic adjustment of an angle of inclination of a vehicle headlight, having the steps: continuous measurement of a rate of rotation of the vehicle headlight; calculation of a change of a gravitational acceleration vector of the vehicle headlight in the coordinate system of the vehicle headlight, using the measured rate of rotation; calculation of an angle of inclination correction using the change of the gravitational acceleration vector; and adjustment of the angle of inclination of the vehicle headlight using the angle of inclination correction.

Disclosed herein is a container refrigeration apparatus including an exterior fan and a gas supply device. The gas supply device includes a unit case having a cooling air inlet port and a cooling air outlet port, and a pump mechanism housed in the unit case and configured to suck, and compress, outside air. The container refrigeration apparatus has an exhaust passage through which the unit case and a space on a suction side of the exterior fan are connected together such that the exterior fan sucks air through the cooling air outlet port out of the unit case. As a result, the problem of heat generated by the gas supply device including the pump mechanism may be solved at low cost.

Provided is a driver circuit including an input port configured for coupling to a ballast and a transformer having a first side coupled to the input port. The driver circuit also includes a rectifier having an input portion coupled to a second side of the transformer and an output portion configured for coupling to a light source. The transformer is configured to match output characteristics of the ballast to input characteristics of the light source.

A digital processor, such as, e.g., a divider in a PID controller, performs a mathematical operation such as division (or multiplication) involving operands represented by strings of bit signals and an operator to produce an operation result. The processor is configured by identifying first and second power-of-two approximating values of the operator as the nearest lower and nearest higher power-of-two values to the operator. The operation is performed on the input operands by means of the first and second power-of-two approximating values of the operator by shifting the bit signals in the operands by using the first and second power-of-two approximating values in an alternated sequence to produce: first approximate results by using the first power-of-two approximating value, second approximate results by using the second power-of-two approximating value. The average of the first and second approximate results is representative of the accurate result of the operation.

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to method and apparatus for scaling out storage devices, and scaled-out storage devices by establishing a cross-device link between a first storage device and a second storage device; exchanging configuration information of at least one of the first storage device and the second storage via the cross-device link; creating, in the first storage device, a shadow object corresponding to a real object in the second storage device; and creating, in the second storage device, a shadow object corresponding to a real object in the first storage device; wherein each shadow object can expose feature and / or state of a corresponding real object to users without implementing a functioning logic of the corresponding real object.