754results about How to "Minimize complexity" patented technology

A system PDA-based on line diagnostics for automatically discovering a thermostat configuration, turning off normal controller delays, temporary overriding sensor inputs and set points, and verifying proper output action including the monitoring the discharge air temperature for the resulting temperature behavior based on the equipment stages activated. The diagnosis may include the testing of sensors, set points, the fan, cooling equipment, heating equipment and the wiring connecting the controls with the fan, and the cooling and heating equipment. Problems discovered may be reported, automatically recorded and the original operating parameters may be restored.

A device and method that may be used at nearly any place to set and adjust a control system such as a thermostat, controller or computer having numerous parameters and options that may be selected for desired operation of an air management system. One may remotely, via a personal digital assistant or computer, configure, commission, select, set or adjust the parameters and options of a control system. The configuration information may be shared with other personal digital assistants in a wireless or non-wireless manner. Further, enhanced diagnostics and repair may be achieved with the sending of configuration information from one PDA or computer to a PDA or computer at a diagnostic and repair facility. New modifications and calibration may be provided for the configuration. Such added information and configuring may be sent back to the originating PDA or computer for the providing to the controller or thermostat.

The present invention relates to a sling, methods of making and using a sling, and kits comprising a sling for treating urinary incontinence. The sling has multiple elongation properties that serve to improve the support of the urethra. The sling may comprise a coated material adapted for urethral suspension. The coated sling has properties that appear to enhance the sling elongation characteristics. The coated sling further includes properties that reduce its susceptibility to bacterial infections. The sling further includes properties to enhance the proper tensioning of the sling.

Methods and systems are described for the automation of a human living environment such as a home, an apartment, a workplace, or a vehicle. The methods and systems are directed to the control of various groups of objects within the human living environments according to defined criteria and defined object groupings, in a manner that establishes operational themes and scenarios within the environment. The methods and systems utilize devices for characterizing the environment (sensors), making decisions about actions appropriate in the environment (processors), and effecting actions and activities within the environment (switches, controls and actuators). The automation operates on multiple levels including; responsive safety functionality, one time action functionality, sporadically initiated timed action functionality, and periodically scheduled action functionality. The systems integrate with off-site information and action routing services that increase the decision making ability of the individuals within the environment.

A thermostat providing modulated or analog control of valves or dampers of an air management system. This permits operating a single cooling or heating stage with partially open valves or dampers as needed, since one full stage that is either fully on or off may not be easy to manage for effective air management of a particular type of building, zone or facility. The thermostat may also provide non-modulated control of multi-stage cooling and heating systems. The thermostat may even be used to control a modulated system having more than one stage of cooling or heating.

A vehicle safety system (10) includes a light source (32). A beam-forming assembly (34) is optically coupled to the light source (32). An object detection sensor (16) detects an object and generates an object detection signal. A controller (18) is coupled to the beam-forming assembly (34) and the object detection sensor (16). The controller (18) adjusts illumination output of the vehicle safety system (10) in response to the object detection signal.

A control system alters one or more characteristics of an ablating element to ablate tissue. In one aspect, the control system delivers energy nearer to the surface of the tissue by changing the frequency or power. In another aspect, the ablating element delivers focused ultrasound which is focused in at least one dimension. The ablating device may also have a number of ablating elements with different characteristics such as focal length.

The invention is a system for detecting and reporting the presence and / or weight of inventory items. The system includes a storage unit having a surface for storing inventory items, one or more sensors positioned on the surface, and a reporting unit for receiving and transmitting the first signal. The sensors may detect and send one or more signals to the reporting unit indicative of the presence and / or weight of inventor items on the surface. The reporting unit then transmits this signal to a controller which uses the presence and / or weight data to determine the presence of items on the surface, the weight of items on the surface and / or the pattern of items on the surface. By knowing presence, weight, and / or pattern of items, the controller is better able to determine the identity and quantity of items in the storage unit.

A capacitive type touch sensing device includes a first electrode array including a plurality of drive electrodes and a plurality of sense electrodes, and a second electrode array spaced apart from the first electrode array and including a plurality of discrete, electrically floating conductive regions. At least part of the second electrode array positionally overlaps with at least part of the first electrode array to define a separation distance therebetween, the separation distance varying with a force applied to a surface of the touch sensing device. Further, each conductive region is positioned relative to a respective drive electrode and sense electrode of the first electrode array so that a capacitance between certain pairs of drive and sense electrodes is more sensitive to a variation in the separation distance than a capacitance between other pairs of drive and sense electrodes.

A monitoring and locating device includes one or more remote child units and a parent unit in communication with each of the child units. The parent unit is adapted to assign and transmit an individual identifier to each child unit. The parent unit is constructed and arranged to continuously monitor each of the child units by transmitting and receiving signals to each of the child units using the individual identifiers assigned thereto. The monitoring and locating device may be used in a method for monitoring and tracking a living entity that includes acquiring the plurality of child units using the parent unit based at least in part on user input. Monitoring each of the plurality of child units individually with the parent unit. Tracking the location of each child unit with the parent unit and locating a selected child unit of the plurality of child units with the parent unit based upon the tracked location thereof.

A system and method to control the stability and direction of a quad tilt vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by manipulating the rotational speed of propellers at each rotor while simultaneously tilting the rotors in a 45 degree configuration related to a central axis for directional control. Each rotor is attached to a tilting mechanism configured to be symmetrically aligned at a 45 degree angle from a central axis to manipulate a directional angle of each rotor along a first and second axis. The first and fourth rotors are aligned on the first axis while the second and third rotors are aligned on the second axis. A controller includes a first control loop for manipulating the rotational speed of the propellers to control the aircraft balance and a second control loop for controlling lateral movement by tilting the rotors along the first and second axis.

A scanning architecture that makes it possible to update only those ultrasonic transducer subelements of a mosaic transducer array that change from view to view. The configuration of the switch matrix is fully programmable. The switch matrix includes access switches that connect subelements to bus lines and matrix switches that connect subelements to subelements. Each subelement has a unit switch cell associated therewith, each unit switch cell comprising at least one access switch, at least one matrix switch, and addressing and control logic. Optionally, each unit switch cell also includes latches for storing the future switch states of the switches to be programmed. The switches themselves have memory for storing their current switch states.

A device and method that may be used at nearly any place to set and adjust a control system such as a thermostat, controller or computer having numerous parameters and options that may be selected for desired operation of an air management system. One may remotely, via a personal digital assistant, configure, commission, select, set or adjust the parameters and options of a control system, which may include, but not be limited to, temperatures, humidity, sensors, volume of air movement, fan or air mover behavior, the percentage of added fresh air, modulated and non-modulated control of valves and dampers, stages of cooling and heating at various zones, control of heat pumps, heaters and air conditioners, modes of occupied, unoccupied or standby of respective spaces in a building, for day and night, at selected times, on certain days, for specific buildings at particular locations.

A process for cultivating photosynthetic microbes comprising Closed Systems for continuous cultivation and Open Systems for batch cultivation, in which (a) the Closed System Area occupies no more than 20% of the Total Land Area of the cultivation facility; (b) batch cultures in the Open Systems are initiated with an inoculum from the Closed Systems containing a cell biomass of no less than 5% of the carrying capacity of said Open System; (c) the doubling rate of said photosynthetic microbe is no less than once every 16 hours; and (d) the residence time of the batch culture in said Open System is no more than a period of 5 days.

The present invention divides the available sub-carriers in an OFDM symbol window into N groups of sub-carriers wherein each group will be associated with sub-bands. In one embodiment, the sub-carriers in a group are spread throughout the range of sub-carriers to improve frequency diversity, and the sub-carriers assigned to any one group are separated by a constant offset. The sub-carriers in the group may be offset by an integer power of two. Within each group, sub-bands are defined using frequency hopping patterns among sub-carriers in the group from one OFDM symbol window to another. A pseudo-random pattern may be employed for sub-carrier mapping from one OFDM symbol window to the next to effectively distribute the sub-bands across the selected band of sub-carriers for the group.

A system PDA-based on line diagnostics for automatically discovering a thermostat configuration, turning off normal controller delays, temporary overriding sensor inputs and set points, and verifying proper output action including the monitoring the discharge air temperature for the resulting temperature behavior based on the equipment stages activated. The diagnosis may include the testing of sensors, set points, the fan, cooling equipment, heating equipment and the wiring connecting the controls with the fan, and the cooling and heating equipment. Problems discovered may be reported, automatically recorded and the original operating parameters may be restored.

A wireless transceiver comprising: a receiver adapted to receive signals in a television broadcast band; and a transmitter adapted to transmit signals in a different band. Also provided is a counterpart transceiver. The latter transceiver comprises: a transmitter adapted to transmit signals in a television broadcast band; and a receiver adapted to receive signals in the different band.

A vision system for a vehicle includes a light source generating an illumination beam, a receiver having a pixel array for capturing an image in response to at least a reflected portion of the illumination beam, the image corresponding to a first horizontal field of view (FOV) angle, and a controller coupled to the light source and the receiver. The controller receives a vehicle speed input and, in response, selects a portion of the image as a non-linear function of the vehicle speed to generate a second horizontal FOV angle for displaying to the vehicle operator. The displayed angular FOV decreases, non-linearly, as the vehicle speed increases.

A scanning architecture that makes it possible to update only those ultrasonic transducer subelements of a mosaic transducer array that change from view to view. The configuration of the switch matrix is fully programmable. The switch matrix includes access switches that connect subelements to bus lines and matrix switches that connect subelements to subelements. Each subelement has a unit switch cell associated therewith, each unit switch cell comprising at least one access switch, at least one matrix switch, and addressing and control logic. Optionally, each unit switch cell also includes latches for storing the future switch states of the switches to be programmed. The switches themselves have memory for storing their current switch states.

A sampled amplitude read channel is disclosed for magnetic disk storage systems comprising an adaptive non-linear correction circuit for correcting non-linear distortions in the read signal, such as asymmetry caused by the non-linear response of a magneto-resistive (MR) read head. The analog read signal is sampled and the discrete time sample values equalized into a desired partial response prior to sequence detection. The non-linear correction circuit is inserted into the read path prior to the sequence detector and adaptively tuned by a least-mean-square (LMS) adaptation circuit. In one embodiment, the non-linear correction circuit is a discrete-time Volterra filter comprising a linear response for implementing an equalizing filter, and a non-linear response for attenuating non-linear distortions in the read signal. The filter coefficients of both the linear and non-linear sections of the Volterra filter are adaptively adjusted by the LMS adaptation circuit. In an alternative embodiment, the non-linear correction circuit operates in the analog domain, prior to the sampling device, where the cost and complexity can be minimized. The analog correction circuit implements an inverse response to that of the non-linearity in the read signal, and the response is adaptively tuned using an LMS update value computed in discrete-time for a Volterra filter, without actually implementing a Volterra filter. Further, the LMS update value for the analog correction circuit can be implemented using a simple squaring circuit.

The present invention relates to a low density parity check (LDPC) encoding method and an apparatus thereof. In the LDPC encoding method, a matrix multiplication corresponding to ET−1 and T−1 is eliminated according to a structural characteristic in an encoding process. Accordingly, shift weights that are not −1 among shift weights corresponding to partial blocks A, B, and C of a parity check matrix are used to perform an encoding operation, and a cyclic shift operation of an information unit block is performed in parallel so that a first parity block and a second parity block may be simultaneously generated.

Digital broadcasting transmission / reception systems capable of improving the synchronization acquisition and the equalization performance, and signal processing methods thereof. The digital broadcasting transmission / reception systems include a FEC encoder encoding an incoming signal according to a FEC scheme, a sync signal insertion unit inserting into the encoded signal a segment sync signal including modified segment syncs, a pilot insertion unit inserting a pilot signal into the sync-inserted signal, a pulse shaping filter pulse-shaping the pilot-inserted signal with a roll-off factor, and a RF unit transmitting the pulse-shaped signal through a transmission channel band. The modified segment sync includes a predetermined number of sync signals, and an average of correlation values with respect to the predetermined number of the sync signals has an auto-correlation property. The transmission scheme utilizing the modified segment syncs promotes compatibility with the conventional reception system, minimizes hardware complexity, and enhances synchronization acquisition and equalization performance.

An apparatus and method for coding a block Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) code having a variable coding rate. The apparatus receives an information word and encodes the information word into a block LDPC code based on one of a first parity check matrix and a second parity check matrix, depending on a coding rate to be applied when generating the information word into the block LDPC code.

A method for deriving an image identifier comprises deriving a scale-space representation of an image, and processing the scale-space representation to detect a plurality of feature points having values that are maxima or minima. A representation is derived for a scale-dependent image region associated with one or more of the detected plurality of feature points. In an embodiment, the size of the image region is dependent on the scale associated with the corresponding feature point. An image identifier is derived using the representations derived for the scale-dependent image regions. The image identifiers may be used in a method for comparing images.