45results about How to "Maximize dynamic range" patented technology

Well logging apparatus and methods for determining formation resistivity at multiple (>3) depths of investigation. At least one transmitter antenna and at least two receiver antennas are mounted in a logging tool housing, on substantially a common axis. The antennas are untuned coils of wire. Electromagnetic energy is emitted at multiple frequencies from the transmitter into the formation. The receiver antennas, which are spaced apart from each other and from the transmitter, detect reflected electromagnetic energy. Formation resistivity at multiple depths of investigation is determined using only phase differences in the reflected energy at the different frequencies, minimizing false indications of invasion due to mismatch of vertical response with attenuation measurements and also permitting correcting for the effects of varying dielectric constant of the formation. The apparatus minimizes the number of antennas, electronics complexity, required power, and measurement time required to determine resistivity at multiple depths of investigation.

An instrument for scanning a specimen has a two-dimensional sensor array, the sensor array containing a mosaic colour filter array or a scanning colour filter array. The instrument can be operated in fluorescence or in brightfield. The scanning colour filter array has the same colour throughout each row with adjacent rows having different colours.

A system and method for compensating an amplifier apparatus for low frequency and / or DC components of an externally applied input signal as well as for any voltage offsets contributed by the amplifier circuitry. Band-limited servo feedback is applied to predetermined nodes in the forward gain path to null out unwanted signal components, leaving a residual signal that, when amplified, will be centered around ground, so that the full dynamic range of the amplifier system may be utilized. Consequently, the signal-to-noise ratio available at the output of the amplifier system will be maximized. The servo compensation may either operate in continuous time, or it may be held constant once a suitable level of compensation has been established, or it may be adjusted from time to time to accommodate slow variations of the average DC component of the input signal.

An instrument and method for scanning at least a portion of a large specimen preferably causes the specimen to move relative to a two-dimensional detector array at a constant speed. The detector array takes one image of the specimen for each line that the detector moves. A controller controls a shutter of the detector array to open to take images and to pass the images to a processor, which is preferably a computer. The instrument takes one partial image of each part of the specimen that is being scanned and then combines those images with other images to produce a contiguous image.

A method of operating an instrument that is a macroscope, microscope, or slide scanner is provided where the instrument has a larger dynamic range for measurement than a dynamic range required in the final image of a specimen. In the method, data is measured from a specimen using the instrument, and the dynamic range of the measured data is contracted in the final image file during scanning.

A black clamp stabilization circuit for an image sensor utilizes a mixed-signal SoC block comprising sub-blocks to dynamically and precisely adjust the black level based on comparison to a reference black level. The black level adjustments include a first level regulation using digital control of an analog signal in a feedback loop that includes a programmable gain amplifier and high-resolution A / D converter. By applying the black clamping in the analog domain, dynamic range is extended. Additional black level regulation is subsequently performed in the digital domain to differentially eliminate line noise and column noise generated within the imaging System-on-Chip. By providing information between the sub-blocks, the algorithms can converge more quickly. The technique enables multiple signal paths to separately handle individual colors and to increase imaging data throughput.

A system and method for compensating an amplifier apparatus for low frequency and / or DC components of an externally applied input signal as well as for any voltage offsets contributed by the amplifier circuitry. Band-limited servo feedback is applied to predetermined nodes in the forward gain path to null out unwanted signal components, leaving a residual signal that, when amplified, will be centered around ground, so that the full dynamic range of the amplifier system may be utilized. Consequently, the signal-to-noise ratio available at the output of the amplifier system will be maximized. The servo compensation may either operate in continuous time, or it may be held constant once a suitable level of compensation has been established, or it may be adjusted from time to time to accommodate slow variations of the average DC component of the input signal.

A capacitive touch sensor includes an array of electrode elements, each electrode element including a drive electrode and a sense electrode, the drive electrode and the sense electrode forming at least one mutual coupling capacitor in each electrode element. A controller is operatively coupled to the array of electrode elements, the controller configured to measure the at least one mutual coupling capacitance over at least one measurement period. In addition, excitation signals applied during the at least one measurement period are balanced to reduce the effect of baseline capacitance.

A force or pressure transducer is disclosed. In one embodiment, the transducer has a substrate, a dielectric material disposed on the substrate, a spacing member disposed on the dielectric material, and a resilient element disposed on the dielectric material and the spacing member. A portion of the resilient element is separated from the dielectric material, and a portion of the resilient element is in contact with the dielectric material. The contact area between the resilient element and the dielectric material varies in response to movement of the resilient element. Changes in the contact area alter the capacitance of the transducer, which can be measured by circuit means.

A low voltage low power signal processing system and method for use in low power and / or portable measuring instruments such as linear or rotary encoders, electronic calipers and the like. In one embodiment, the analog-to-digital converter is implemented as a parallel, single ramp, with two matched comparators for each leg of differential input, which can be implemented with relatively simple circuitry, and consequently be of a small size. The system may be used with a three-phase transducer configuration, for which the preferred signal processing techniques are able to cancel most of the third harmonic distortion in the system, and for which the fully differential signal processing methods of the invention are advantageous. The invention may be used in a portable measuring instrument that operates from a single 1.5 volt watch battery or solar cell, and that has a current drain of 5 microamps. By using capacitors of the same type in the ramp generator and clock generator, and charging them with scaled bias currents, and by using resistors and capacitors of the same type in the clock and analog-to-digital converter, the scale factor of the system is made to be independent of process parameters.

An apparatus for processing images includes an image sensor to output a long exposure image frame based upon a first exposure time and at least two short exposure image frames having a single, second exposure time different from the first exposure time; a mode determination unit to determine the second exposure time based on the number of saturated pixels in the image frame output from the image sensor; a shutter controller to control the exposure time of each frame of the image sensor based on an output signal from the mode detection unit; and an image processing unit to fuse the long exposure image frame and the at least two short exposure image frames to output a wide dynamic range (WDR) image. Methods for processing WDR images are also disclosed.

An RF power detector having a wide dynamic range may comprise a chopping amplifier and is configured to detect pulsed high frequency RF signals. The chopping amplifier controlled by a bias current regulator amplifies and chops an RF signal by periodically enabling and disabling the amplifier according to a system clock. The chopped high frequency RF signal feeds a Schottky diode biased to operate in the square law region for weak signals. The Schottky diode voltage is tapped and high pass filtered. The voltage drives a logarithmic and linear converter. The converter outputs are summed to produce an output voltage that is a repeatable and stable monotonically increasing function of the RF power.

The invention is a method and transmission system which transmits an analog composite signal, including carriers which are respectively modulated with different digital data signal. A transmission system in accordance with the invention includes a signal combiner (18), responsive to the digital data signals, which are provided as inputs to the signal combiner, the signal combiner providing an output of a combined digital signal representing combining of the digital data signals; a multiple carrier transmitter (38) which transmits the analog composite signal; a digital to analog converter (20) which converts a composite digital signal input into the analog composite signal, the digital to analog converter having a dynamic range of digital to analog conversion; and a digital scaler (102), responsive to the combined digital signal provided by the signal combiner, which outputs the composite digital signal that is digital to analog converted by the digital to analog converter, the composite digital signal being a function of the combined digital signal provided by the signal combiner and having a controlled magnitude which results in as much of the dynamic range of the digital to analog converter as possible being used during digital to analog conversion of the composite digital signal without clipping the composite digital signal.

An acceleration amplifier, which is adapted to amplify useful signals, which are proportional to translation motion of a carrier, and to suppress noise, which is not proportional to translation motion of a carrier, in output signals from an acceleration producer, including a MEMS (MicroElectronicMechanicalSystem) acceleration sensor. Compared with a conventional amplifiers, a signal centering control means are utilized to further maximize the dynamic range of the acceleration measurements and minimize offset of the acceleration measurements from the acceleration producer. Furthermore, the acceleration producer and the amplifier of the present invention are used in a micro inertial measurement unit (IMU) to improve performance of the micro inertial measurement unit to form highly accurate, digital angular increments, velocity increments, position, velocity, attitude, and heading measurements of a carrier under dynamic environments.

Active feedback is used with two electrodes of a four-electrode capacitive-gap transduced wine-glass disk resonator to enable boosting of an intrinsic resonator Q and to allow independent control of insertion loss across the two other electrodes. Two such Q-boosted resonators configured as parallel micromechanical filters may achieve a tiny 0.001% bandwidth passband centered around 61 MHz with only 2.7 dB of insertion loss, boosting the intrinsic resonator Q from 57,000, to an active Q of 670,000. The split capacitive coupling electrode design removes amplifier feedback from the signal path, allowing independent control of input-output coupling, Q, and frequency. Controllable resonator Q allows creation of narrow channel-select filters with insertion losses lower than otherwise achievable, and allows maximizing the dynamic range of a communication front-end without the need for a variable gain low noise amplifier.

The invention discloses an adaptive maximum intermediate frequency energy tracking radar receiving system, and the system comprises a radio frequency front end, a triggering board, an intermediate frequency amplifier board, and a radar terminal. The radio frequency front end comprises a low-noise amplifier, a double-balance frequency mixer, and a local oscillator. The triggering board comprises a microprocessor, a programmable gate array, a signal buffering processing module, an analog-digital conversion module, and a digital-analog conversion module. The intermediate frequency amplifier board comprises an energy voltage conversion circuit, a low-noise intermediate frequency amplification circuit, a band-pass filter circuit, a logarithmic amplification detection circuit, and a push output circuit. The radar terminal comprises a terminal processing display module. The invention provides a brand-new receiving system based on maximum intermediate frequency energy tracking, completely changes a mode of automatic frequency control of a conventional navigation radar receiving system, and effectively solves a problem that a conventional mode of frequency tracking causes the decrease of capability of finding a small object because of the frequency spectrum change of a radar transmitter magnetron. The digitalization of the radar receiving system improves the reliability and expansibility of the radar receiving system.

A charge amplifier includes an amplifier, feedback circuit, and cancellation circuit. The feedback circuit includes a capacitor, inverter, and current mirror. The capacitor is coupled across the signal amplifier, the inverter is coupled to the output of the signal amplifier, and the current mirror is coupled to the input of the signal amplifier. The cancellation circuit is coupled to the output of the signal amplifier. A method of charge amplification includes providing a signal amplifier; coupling a first capacitor across the signal amplifier; coupling an inverter to the output of the signal amplifier; coupling a current mirror to the input of the signal amplifier; and coupling a cancellation circuit to the output of the signal amplifier. A front-end system for use with radiation sensors includes a charge amplifier and a current amplifier, shaping amplifier, baseline stabilizer, discriminator, peak detector, timing detector, and logic circuit coupled to the charge amplifier.

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 extreme cold. The positioning of the gyroscope and temperature sensor on the same chip allow for extremely accurate real-time feedback of the gyroscope's temperature for utilization by a control system.

Active feedback is used with two electrodes of a four-electrode capacitive-gap transduced wine-glass disk resonator to enable boosting of an intrinsic resonator Q and to allow independent control of insertion loss across the two other electrodes. Two such Q-boosted resonators configured as parallel micromechanical filters may achieve a tiny 0.001% bandwidth passband centered around 61 MHz with only 2.7 dB of insertion loss, boosting the intrinsic resonator Q from 57,000, to an active Q of 670,000. The split capacitive coupling electrode design removes amplifier feedback from the signal path, allowing independent control of input-output coupling, Q, and frequency. Controllable resonator Q allows creation of narrow channel-select filters with insertion losses lower than otherwise achievable, and allows maximizing the dynamic range of a communication front-end without the need for a variable gain low noise amplifier.

Disclosed is a system and method for reducing a bit-depth requirement for an A / D converter in a GPS receiver having an antenna for receiving an analog input signal and a low noise amplifier for amplifying the input signal, comprising a filter for filtering about a bandwidth B the amplified signal; a down-conversion module centering the frequency of the filtered signal about a center frequency f0; an automatic gain controller (AGC) for setting a set point of the input signal; an adder for adding noise to the gain controlled signal, said noise based upon the bandwidth B and center frequency f0; and an analog to digital (A / D) converter for converting the added noise signal to a digital signal, wherein the noise added to the gain controlled signal reduces the bit depth requirement of the A / D converter.

A charge amplifier includes an amplifier, feedback circuit, and cancellation circuit. The feedback circuit includes a capacitor, inverter, and current mirror. The capacitor is coupled across the signal amplifier, the inverter is coupled to the output of the signal amplifier, and the current mirror is coupled to the input of the signal amplifier. The cancellation circuit is coupled to the output of the signal amplifier. A method of charge amplification includes providing a signal amplifier; coupling a first capacitor 10 across the signal amplifier; coupling an inverter to the output of the signal amplifier; coupling a current mirror to the input of the signal amplifier; and coupling a cancellation circuit to the output of the signal amplifier. A front-end system for use with radiation sensors includes a charge amplifier and a current amplifier, shaping amplifier, baseline stabilizer, discriminator, peak detector, timing detector, and logic circuit coupled to the charge amplifier.

An imaging apparatus and method, the apparatus comprising: a semiconductor die; a photosensitive array of photodiodes and single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), the photodiodes comprising reverse biased diodes; and a front-end circuit coupled to the photosensitive array; and an output for outputting image data from the front-end circuit. The photosensitive array and the front-end circuit are provided in the semiconductor die.

The invention provides a real-time high-dynamic imaging method and imaging system, and solves the problems that an existing dynamic range extension method cannot meet the application occasions with high real-time requirements and small time delay, calculation results have large errors, and high-dynamic images are blurred. The method comprises the following steps: 1, enabling an image detector to output high-gain and low-gain image data; 2, performing Gray code-binary code conversion on the high-gain image data and the low-gain image data; 3, obtaining weights of the high-gain image and the low-gain image; 4, fusing the high dynamic range images; 5, performing high dynamic range image mapping; 6, storing the mapped high dynamic range image data in a cache unit; 7, reading cache unit data, and packaging and encoding the mapped high dynamic range image data; and 8, sending the packaged and encoded image data to an output unit for outputting.

The invention discloses a signal drift dynamic correction method and device. A direct-current recovery ring circuit is adopted for achieving dynamic correction of signal drift of photoelectric detector pre-circuit output, a signal amplification and conditioning circuit and the like, in the period of detecting a dark object, a switch S1 is closed, direct-current recovery is executed on a feedback loop, output is forced to reach a set low value, the switch S1 is disconnected to make direct-current recover a datum point A point level clamp, and a B point level is collected to serve as current background data; by switching to a scene target, an input scene target signal is overlaid on a direct-current level of the A point clamp, a B point level is collected to serve as the sum of scene targetdata and the background data, and scene target data can be obtained by subtracting the background data. The above-mentioned operations are repeated periodically, and the scene target data can be continuously obtained. Accordingly, the background signal level can be inhibited, the signal dynamic range can be widened, the system measurement precision is effectively improved, and the method and device are specially suitable for the technical field of space remote sensing.