Patents by Inventor Douglas O'Brien Jackson

Douglas O'Brien Jackson 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).

  • Patent number: 5550731
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for implementing a databus voter to select the command signals from one of several redundant asynchronous digital processing units finds particular application in the flight control art. Asynchronous, triple redundant primary flight computers (PFC's) (12, 14, 16) produce output command signals carried over a data buses (18) to control redundant actuators (32, 34, 36) in an aircraft flight control system. To prevent the transmission of a fault and a force fight among the redundant actuators, which drive a common aircraft control surface (50), a databus voter (52, 54, 56) associated with each PFC receives all PFC commands and, in accordance with a selection algorithm, outputs a voted one of the PFC command signals. A databus voter monitor, (144) associated with each databus voter, deactivates its associated databus voter if it detects a voted command signal which is inconsistent with the selection algorithm.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 1995
    Date of Patent: August 27, 1996
    Inventor: Douglas O'Brien Jackson