Patents by Inventor David J. Lucia

David J. Lucia has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Autonomous local vertical determination apparatus and methods for a ballistic body
    Patent number: 5886257
    Abstract: Three rate gyros are mounted to a ballistic body to provide an autonomous navigation system. A roll gyro, a yaw gyro and a pitch gyro are rigidly fixed to the ballistic body. Each gyro is arranged to be responsive to a roll rate about an input axis that is substantially orthogonal to any other gyro. The roll-rate gyro has its input axis aligned parallel to the body spin axis. An on-board processor utilizes recursive Kalman-filtering to determine the roll angle, i.e., the local vertical direction, from the gyro outputs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 3, 1996
    Date of Patent: March 23, 1999
    Assignee: The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.
    Inventors: Donald E. Gustafson, David J. Lucia