Abstract: A system for sensing, processing and analyzing images includes a camera assembly for sensing a workpiece image and generating video signals representing the sensed images. The video signals are fed through a multiplexer to a vision processor and a display. The video signals are preprocessed and stored in the vision processor which has a shared memory. A computer controller, which has access to the shared memory via a common bus, controls operation of the vision processor in response to command signals from peripheral devices. The controller generates data signals for presenting the sensed images on a display and controlling external devices in response to the visual characteristics of the workpiece.

Abstract: A set of instruments is described which enables variability in the size and shape of the region of destructive, radio frequency heating (lesion making) of tissue within the living body, and which enables this variability with only one insertion tract into the body up to the region of the targeted tissue. The set of instruments comprises an entrance cannula with a through-opening along its length and with the through-opening being front-facing at the cannula's distal end, a straight lesion electrode which telescopes into said cannula such that the exposed metal tip of the electrode can extend beyond the distal tip of the cannula by a variable amount, and an off-axis-tipped electrode that also telescopes into the cannula so that its uninsulated tip emerges from the cannula's distal end in an off-axis direction. The bare tips of these electrodes can be raised to a radio frequency (rf) potential by connections on electrode's hubs, this rf potential causing the tissue to heat around the tip.

Abstract: A method for improving signal quality while simultaneously enhancing the data rate in a communications system in which individual signaling events are, at least in principle, capable of representing a bit of digital intelligence. When the method is applied to power-line communication systems, the pattern of signaling events extends over some integer multiple of four cycles of the power-line wave. Signaling events of each particular type are found in exactly half of the cycles contained in any pattern. Patterns containing but one type of signaling event are arranged into orthogonal patterns--the term orthogonal implying that each pattern can be sensed only by a detection mode that maximizes the signal therefrom, and the application of any detection mode to a pattern for which it is not optimum will result in no net accumulation of signal.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for improving the display of objects on an interlaced raster-scan television are disclosed. The invention takes each data point that will appear as a pixel on the screen and makes it appear also at pixel locations displaced by one unit in each of two axes, individually or collectively if desired. The direction of displacement is uniform for any given picture. The additional appearance is not stored as part of the picture data, but instead is generated "on the fly" as part of reading the data and preparing it for presentation on the television screen.

Abstract: An arc welding system with image acquisition utilizing a non-planar beam of electro-magnetic radiation, such as, a hollow conical beam of light, to illuminate at least a portion of the welding object is disclosed. The conical beam of light is generated by impinging a light beam on the surface of a concave, cylindrical reflector having a longitudinal axis that preferably is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the welding torch. The light beam enters the concave cylindrical reflector through the hollow shaft of a motor. Rotation of the motor angularly positions the reflected light beam on the welding object. The illuminated portion of the object is imaged on an array of photosensitive elements to produce corresponding signals that are representative of the image on the array. These signals are used to obtain identification information concerning the welding object and guidance information for a plural axis manipulator that guides the welding torch tool along a welding seam.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for controlling a stepper motor involves the generation of command currents which drive the stepper motor and provided critical damping of the natural resonance of the stepper motor. Digital error signals are developed by selectively combining a position signal and a digital velocity signal which is derived from a feedback signal proportional to velocity. In one embodiment, the digital error signals are converted into command currents for driving the stepper motor in such a manner as to achieve damping of the motor's natural resonance. In an anternative embodiment, the digital error signals and feed forward acceleration signals and/or feed forward velocity signals are converted into command currents for driving the stepper motor so as to achieve damping of the motor's natural resonance, as well as correction for positional errors induced by either velocity or acceleration.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for image acquisition utilizing a non-planar beam of electro-magnetic radiation, such as, a hollow conical beam of light, to illuminate at least a portion of an object. The conical beam of light is generated by impinging a light beam on the surface of a concave, cylindrical reflector. The light beam enters the concave cylindrical reflector through the hollow shaft of a motor. The illuminated portion of the object is imaged on an array of photosensitive elements to produce corresponding signals that are representative of the image on the array. These signals can be used to obtain identification information concerning the object and guidance information for a plural axis manipulator employed in conjunction with the object. In one application the image acquisition apparatus is used in a robot to provide control signals for guiding the robot tool along a path, such as, a welding seam.

Abstract: A radio frequency (rf) lesion electrode design with a thermocouple temperature sensor in its distal uninsulated tip is described, having special design features which enable it to be made with very small tip diameters, flexible tip geometrics, very close proximity of the thermocouple sensor to the tissue the temperature of which must be measured, and very accurate and rapid temperature response. The two metal elements which are the two sides of the thermocouple junction, and the thermocouple junction itself are located in part on the external surface of the electrode's lesioning tip, essentially in direct physical contact with the tissue which is to be heated. This externalized sensor design is in contrast to all other temperature monitoring rf lesion electrodes to date where the sensors have been internalized, i.e., built inside the tip and not adjacent to heated tissue.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for image acquisition utilizing a non-planar beam of electro-magnetic radiation, such as, a hollow conical beam of light, to illuminate at least a portion of an object. The conical beam of light is generated by impinging a light beam on the surface of a concave, cylindrical reflector. The illuminated portion of the object is imaged on an array of photosensitive elements to produce corresponding signals that are representative of the image on the array. These signals can be used to obtain identification information concerning the object and guidance information for a plural axis manipulator employed in conjunction with the object. In one application the image acquisition apparatus is used in a robot to provide control signals for guiding the robot tool along a path, such as, a welding seam.

Abstract: A phototypesetter font disk has a plurality of circumferentially spaced, optically readable indicia and a strobe track radially spaced from the indicia which contains a plurality of circumferentially spaced timing marks. Each indicia has an associated timing mark that is both radially and circumferentially spaced from its respective indicia. The strobe track has an identifiable reference location from which each indicia timing mark is angularly spaced. Additional marks are interposed between the indicia timing marks on the strobe track to define digital data relating to the font disk. Typically, such data includes font identification information.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for communicating over electric power lines in a direction from load to source is disclosed. The power line voltage wave is loaded in a predetermined pattern to produce a corresponding pattern of signaling currents at a receiving site. Detection of the signaling current is accomplished in the preferred embodiment by integrating the current in the phase or the neutral of the feeder that serves the signaling site during predetermined time windows which are synchronized with the power line voltage wave. The current integration is performed in accordance with a detection algorithm to accumulate principally the current differences that are attributable to the signaling currents while in the presence of steady and transient currents on the feeder.

Abstract: An improvement in design of an implantable telemetric differential pressure sensing device enabling thinner, more compact, and simplified construction for the device; increased pressure sensitivity and range of measurement; and a wider class of applications for such pressure sensing devices in diagnostic medicine and clinical monitoring. The implanted device includes a thin, planar, closed, conductive loop which moves with a flexible diaphragm, the diaphragm moving upon changes in the difference of two bodily pressures on its opposite sides. The position of the conductive loop relative to a resonant circuit fixed in the device determines the resonant frequency of the resonant circuit. The resonant frequency is detected telemetrically outside the body, and its value is used to determine the difference in the two bodily pressures.

Abstract: A differential pressure sensing device is fully implanted beneath the skin in the living body such that its pressure responsive means, such as a diaphragm means, senses the difference in pressure between an internal bodily pressure and the pressure on the skin which is just above the sensor. The sensor has a stop, or a mechanical contact means, for the diaphragm means so that the diaphragm will be pressed against the stop when an externally applied pressure on the skin equals or exceeds the internal pressure. The sensor also has a means with a detectable parameter that can be detected outside the body by external apparatus. The external apparatus also converts the parameter to an audible sound or audio signal. The parameter has a specific response when the diaphragm is near the stop position, and this response can be heard via the audio signal.

Abstract: The present invention is a new kind of bipolar coagulating instrument which has special application in certain microsurgical or neurosurgical contexts in which one must grip and coagulate a web of tissue or membrane which is inside a deep surgical hole, and where the web hangs from the side wall of the hole and is in a plane perpendicular to the line of sight. The instrument must then be adapted to grip the hanging membrane with its tips and close down on the membrane in a direction which is parallel to the line of sight, and then apply a coagulating potential to its tips to coagulate the membrane. The invention then has a side-biting tips which close in a longitudinal direction, i.e. parallel to the line of sight or the distal axis of the instrument, and which has tips that are electrically insulated to become the two poles of the coagulating electric potential.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for targetless X, Y and .theta. alignment of a semiconductor wafer having thereon a large number of identical microcircuits or dies that are arranged in a pattern to form rows and columns separated by scribe lines or "streets." The orientation of the wafer is defined by the location of the wafer flat. Each one of the scribe lines or "streets" has a known angular relationship with the wafer flat. The alignment method and apparatus utilizes the wafer "street" pattern for identification instead of special targets located on the wafer. Coarse alignment of the wafer is achieved by locating the wafer flat and then rotating the wafer into approximately correct orientation. Fine alignment of the wafer is performed by opto-electrically locating the edge of a "street" and then rotating the wafer until the "street" edge is parallel to either the X or Y principal axis.

Abstract: A differential pressure sensing device is fully implanted in the body of a patient to monitor internal pressure such as intracranial pressure. A movable element in the sensor communicates with the internal pressure of the body to be measured on one side and the atmospheric pressure on the other, the latter communicated through the intact skin and a nearly coplanar membrane. The movable element's differential pressure dependent displacement changes a physical characteristic of the sensor, such as the resonant frequency of a tune L-C circuit, and the change is detected external to the body by a radiating detector system, such as a frequency swept radio frequency oscillator, by which the internal pressure is read out.

Abstract: A differential pressure sensing device is fully implanted in the body of a patient to monitor internal pressure such as intracranial pressure. A movable element in the sensor communicates on one side with the internal pressure to be measured and on the other side with an external pressure which is applied by an external pressurizer-control system and which is communicated to the sensor through the intact skin. An imbalance of the two opposing pressures causes a displacement of the movable element which changes a physical characteristic of the sensor, such as the resonant frequency of a tuned L-C circuit. This change is detected outside the body by an external detection system, such as a frequency swept radio frequency oscillator. The external pressure is varied until the external detector senses that the pressures are balanced on the movable element, at which point the external pressure equals the internal pressure, and the former is measured and read out.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are disclosed for fine aligning a photomask to a semiconductor using the interference and diffraction effects produced by coherent light impinging upon or passing through repetitive patterns on a photomask and a semiconductor. A plurality of photodetectors are employed to convert the interference information into phase dependent electrical signals that are used to control conventional X, Y and .theta. workpiece positioning mechanisms.

Abstract: An electrical power distribution assembly having over and under contacts is disclosed. In the preferred embodiment, the electrical power distribution assembly utilizes stacked upper and lower contact decks, each having two independent electrical circuits to provide a four circuit plug-in distribution assembly. Using modular components, the distribution assembly can be configured to provide switched and unswitched outputs as well as switched taps for the electrical power circuits.