175results about "Production of permanent records" patented technology

The present invention relates to a method of detecting a defect area without any mistake during data recording on a writable disk. This method detects a level of a servo error signal produced during a recording operation, checks whether the servo error signal is in an abnormal state based on the detected level, detects a periodic wobble signal or periodicity of the abnormal state occurrences of the servo error signal produced during the recording operation, and determines whether a recording area is in defect based on successful decoding of the detected periodic wobble signal or the periodicity of the abnormal state occurrences if the servo error signal is in an abnormal state. This method ensures exact detection of a defect area, whereby unnecessary speed reduction can be eliminated and successful data writing can be also guaranteed even in a defect area.

Methods and systems of detecting one or more characteristics of a load are disclosed. One or more characteristics of a first signal may be detected at the output of a Radio Frequency (RF) power generator. The first signal may have a fundamental frequency. The one or more characteristics of the first signal may be sampled at a sampling frequency to produce a digital sampled signal. The sampling frequency may be determined based on a function of the fundamental frequency of the first signal. One or more characteristics of a load in communication with the RF power generator may then be determined from the digital sampled signal.

A method and system for determining cable network topology for a plurality of set-top boxes connected to the cable network, the method comprising using existing information transmitted within the cable network for a non-location purpose to determine an absolute physical location of at least one set-top box within the topology. Related methods and apparatus are also described.

A lighting system is disclosed having a plurality of luminaires in which the energy usage of each luminaire can individually be metered using a luminaire controller having a metering circuit.

Disposable, pre-sterilized, and pre-calibrated, pre-validated conductivity sensors are provided. These sensors are designed to store sensor-specific information, such as calibration and production information, in a non-volatile memory chip on the sensor on in a barcode printed on the sensor The sensors are calibrated using 0100 molar potassium chloride (KCl) solutions at 25 degrees Celsius. These sensors may be utilize with in-line systems, closed fluid circuits, bioprocessing systems, or systems which require an aseptic environment while avoiding or reducing cleaning procedures and quality assurance variances.

An electrical sub-metering system for making available information associated with power consumption is disclosed. The system includes an electrical panel board configured to distribute power to a plurality of circuits, means for measuring voltage of each circuit, a module including means for measuring current flow, a hub in signal communication with the module and the means for measuring voltage, and a data collector in signal communication with the hub. The hub is configured to collect the information associated with power consumption from the means for measuring voltage and the module, and the data collector is configured to collect and make available to a user the information associated with power consumption for each circuit. The module is in signal communication with the hub via a single communication link, the single communication link having a plurality of communication paths.

The present invention provides method for locating a line-to-ground fault point of an underground power cable system wherein a distributed parameter circuit analysis theory is employed to consider a capacitive element of a cable in a underground power cable analysis, thereby providing an accurate estimation of the fault distance even when the arrangement of the cable and the fault resistance are varied. A method for locating a line-to-ground fault point of an underground power cable system of the present invention comprises steps of: modeling an equivalent circuit including an impedance element and an admittance element of a core and a sheath for each phase of an underground power cable; establishing a voltage and current equation for the core and the sheath of the cable by applying a distributed parameter circuit analysis method for each section about the fault point in the equivalent circuit; establishing an equation of a fault distance using a fault condition for an entire system and the voltage and current equation; and calculating the fault distance using the equation of the fault distance and a source side information and a load side information.

A waveform translator in which the frequency spectrum of a repetitive non band limited input signal is translated to an equivalent frequency spectrum which is harmonically related to a fixed reference frequency. In the waveform translator a synthesized source generator and a synthesized receive generator are made coherent. The source generator drives a DUT, and the receive generator coupled to a sampler, samples the DUT to produce a non band limited difference signal harmonically related to the fixed reference frequency. The difference signal is digitized in an analog to digital converter which is clocked at the reference frequency and produces a predetermined integer number of data points per cycle corresponding to the input signal. A computer is coupled to the waveform translator for DC to 75 GHz oscillography.

An electrical switching apparatus includes a plurality of poles each having a Rogowski coil and a conductor passing through an opening thereof, and a processor circuit including a sensor circuit including a plurality of inputs each electrically interconnected with an output of the Rogowski coil of a corresponding pole. The sensor circuit further includes a number of outputs having values each corresponding to current flowing through the conductor, a memory including for each corresponding pole an offset value and a gain correction factor for the sensor circuit, and a gain correction factor for the Rogowski coil, a number of routines, and a processor cooperating with the sensor circuit and the routines to provide for each pole a corrected current value as a function of a corresponding one of the values, the sensor circuit offset value and gain correction factor, and the Rogowski coil gain correction factor.

A method and apparatus for synchronizing presentation of multi-domain measurements using actual or quasi 3-D representation. The synchronization between data streams acquired in different measurement domains is performed by using timestamps, a common trigger event, or a common clock, or a combination of any or all of them. In this way, for example, a transient anomaly in the RF spectrum of a communications signal may be correlated with, and displayed with, a related corrupted data communications packet.

A personal radiation-alerting device for use with a cellular telephone is provided. The radiation alerting device may comprise a radio frequency (RF) sampling unit adapted to measure the amplitude of the electromagnetic field generated by the cellular telephone over time, a computing unit adapted to compute the amplitude over time and to compare it with a predefined reference level and an alerting unit adapted to output an alert whenever the electromagnetic field exceeds the predefined reference level.

A method and system for obtaining motor current measurements from a DC bus current of an inverter that drives a pulse width modulated electric machine is disclosed. The method may include sensing a DC bus current in a sensor located on a bus of an inverter; sampling the DC bus current via an analog to digital converter wherein the sampling is controlled by sampling timing that is based on a pulse width modulation timing of the inverter; and determining three AC phase currents of the motor from the sampled DC bus current.

Systems and other embodiments associated with synthetic instrumentation are presented. A reconfigurable synthetic instrumentation unit comprises an input module, with dual input / output ports and conditioning logic to condition an input signal. An RF down converter selectively down converts the conditioned input signal. A sampled RF down converter selectively samples the conditioned input signal. A pair of narrowband A / D converters are configured to convert one of the conditioned signal, the down converted signal and the sampled signal to produce a narrowband digital signal. A pair of broadband A / D converters convert at least one of the conditioned signal, the down converted signal and the sampled signal to produce a broadband digital signal. Signal processing logic selectively performs digital signal processing on the broadband digital signal or the narrow band digital signal.

When a sample stream is decimated, frequency components from outside of a desired frequency band are aliased into the desired band, causing interference and loss of information. Different decimating ratios result in different frequencies aliasing into the desired frequency band. A current-mode sampling mixer 800 with capacitor banks 811 and 812 that are controlled by a digital control unit 820 with a capability to integrate and decimate an RF current at different decimating ratios is able to measure the frequency spectrum with different decimating ratios. The measured frequency spectrum is then analyzed to detect the presence of interferers aliased into the desired frequency band. The interferers can then be eliminated or avoided.

A device and system for the wireless communication with a circuit breaker is provided which allows for obtaining data associated with a circuit breaker to quickly and easily access information associated with the trip event. The circuit breaker contains an electronic module which is configured to record and transmit data associated with the circuit using wireless technology.

A mixed signal test system for testing a semiconductor device having both an analog function and a digital function achieves improved resolution and low cost. The test system is formed of a functional test unit for testing a digital function of a device under test (DUT), an analog test unit (ATU) for testing an analog function of the DUT, and a synchronous control unit for synchronizing operations between the functional test unit and the analog test unit. The analog test unit includes a digitizer for converting an analog output of the DUT into a digital signal, and an acquisition memory for storing the digital signal from the digitizer in specified addresses. The wave form of the analog output is repeated by a plurality of cycles and a sampling clock for the digitizer is phase shifted by a predetermined amount for each cycle.

A device and system for the wireless communication with a circuit breaker is provided which allows for obtaining data associated with a circuit breaker to quickly and easily access information associated with the trip event. The circuit breaker contains an electronic module which is configured to record and transmit data associated with the circuit using wireless technology.

A method and apparatus for spectral analysis of a sampled signal are provided. According to the method, a first time interval DELTAT is determined which represents a sample set over which the signal can be averaged for purpose of decomposing the signal into instantaneous mean and random components. From random component of the signal, the optimal time-dependent time interval AW over which the random component should be averaged to obtain the instantaneous frequency spectrum (IFS) is then calculated based upon the instantaneous signal memory. Signal memory specifies the extent in time beyond which the signal "forgets" its past behavior and thus is a measure of its degree-of-randomness. Defining AW in this way reduces the likelihood that short-lived events are lost (or masked) due to uncharacteristically short (or long) averaging intervals. Importantly, both time intervals DELTAT and AW are dynamic and vary randomly with time. Because these intervals can be computed in real time, the instantaneous frequency spectrum over interval AW can also be computed in real time.

A system and method for providing successive approximation, such as can be used by a successive approximation converter or by a coherent undersampling digitizer. The system comprising a memory having a successive approximation value and a comparison system configured to receive and amplify the difference between a test signal and the successive approximation value and to convert the amplified signal to a digital signal. A multi-bit analog to digital convert can be used to convert the amplified signal to a digital signal.

The present invention provides a wide area protection control measurement system and method which excels in economy, reliability and expandability, in which applied arithmetic operation functions for protection, control and measurement can be freely added and changed, without adding or changing power monitoring terminals to be installed in the electric-supply station. The wide area protection control measurement system is configured from N number of power monitoring terminals 1 installed in an electric-supply station in a target range, one electric quantity aggregation device 3 connected with these power monitoring terminals 1 via a communication network 2, and M number of applied arithmetic operation devices 4 connected with the electric aggregation device 3 through an inter-device connection. Each power monitoring terminal 1 transmits electric quantity data to the electric quantity aggregation device 3 via the communication network 2. The electric quantity aggregation device 3 aggregates received electric quantity data to generate aggregated electric quantity data and outputs it to each applied arithmetic operation devices 4. Each applied arithmetic operation devices 4 performs applied arithmetic operation for protection, control or management, using the aggregated electric quantity data acquired from the electric quantity aggregation device 3.

A lighting system is disclosed having a plurality of luminaires in which the energy usage of each luminaire can individually be metered using a luminaire controller having a metering circuit.

A circuit for recording a magnitude of an ESD event during semiconductor assembly includes a voltage divider connected between an input and a ground. The circuit also includes a measurement block having a recorder device. Each measurement block receives current from a segment of the voltage divider. The magnitude of the ESD event is determined based upon a read-out of the measurement devices after the ESD event. The recorder device may be a capacitor that would be damaged during the ESD event. During the ESD event the capacitor may be damaged. Reading out the recorder device determines if the magnitude of the ESD event exceeded a threshold magnitude that damages the capacitor.

A system and method for providing successive approximation, such as can be used by a successive approximation converter or by a coherent undersampling digitizer. The system comprising a memory having a successive approximation value and a comparison system configured to receive and amplify the difference between a test signal and the successive approximation value and to convert the amplified signal to a digital signal. A multi-bit analog to digital convert can be used to convert the amplified signal to a digital signal.

A “no dead time” data acquisition system for a measurement instrument receives a digitized signal representing an electrical signal being monitored and generates from the digitized signal a trigger signal using a fast digital trigger circuit, the trigger signal including all trigger events within the digitized signal. The digitized signal is compressed as desired and delayed by a first-in, first-out (FIFO) buffer for a period of time to assure a predetermined amount of data prior to a first trigger event in the trigger signal. The delayed digitized signal is delivered to a fast rasterizer or drawing engine upon the occurrence of the first trigger event to generate a waveform image. The waveform image is then provided to a display buffer for combination with prior waveforms and / or other graphic inputs from other drawing engines. The contents of the display buffer are provided to a display at a display update rate to show a composite of all waveform images representing the electrical signal.

A self-adjusting hold-off trigger circuit and method detects a threshold crossing between consecutive samples of a digitized input signal as edge events, identifies the crossing as a qualified trigger event if the crossing is in a desired direction based upon trigger criteria, and provides a trigger output when the qualified trigger event occurs greater than an approximate average or peak time after a preceding edge event.

A branch circuit monitoring system (BCMS) for monitoring branch circuit currents in one or more electrical circuit panels is described. The system is comprised of a data center server, one or more panel processors, each with one or more collection devices, and one or more current sensors per collection device. The BCMS is designed to be installed entirely inside the panel without the need for a dedicated enclosure or power supply to facilitate ease of installation and low-cost. The BCMS also allows for future upgradability through standard software updates so that the system can be updated or patched easily. The BCMS data center server collects, aggregates, stores, and serves historical branch circuit current data from the panel processors to networked users via a web server to provide visualization of data such as tables, charts, and gauges. Finally, the BCMS interfaces to third-party software suites using industry-standard protocols such as Modbus® TCP and BACnet™ for integration with data center infrastructure management or building management system software.

Methods, computer program segment and apparatus for analyzing high voltage circuit breakers are provided. The method includes determining a circuit breaker contact closing time, determining a circuit breaker contact opening time, and determining a circuit breaker pre-insertion resistor resistance value using at least three voltage samples and three current samples to facilitate reducing an induced current measurement error. The computer program segment is embodied on a computer readable media and is programmed to determine a circuit breaker contact closing time, determine a circuit breaker contact opening time, and determine a circuit breaker pre-insertion resistor resistance value using at least three voltage samples and three current samples that facilitate minimizing an induced current measurement error. The apparatus includes a testing circuit, an overvoltage protection circuit, and a processor programmed to determine a circuit breaker contact timing measurement and a circuit breaker contact resistance measurement.

A phase current prediction method is disclosed. The phase current prediction method predicts current representative of a PWM period using a motor model which receives current measured through a single current sensor as an input, instead of the measured current, and determines the predicted current to be phase current.