Abstract: An installation method for installing machines of different heights at an installation site includes provision of a flexible power cord of particular length, affixed to an upper region of each machine. The power cord is terminated in a power-rated male connector. At the intended installation location, the power cord origination location is identified, which is the location at which the power cord will originate after installation. An interface box having a NEMA female connector is installed at a location such that the female connector is at a radius from the power cord origination location which is less than the length of the flexible power cord. The interface box is installed, connected to a power source, and tested, before physical installation of the machine. At the time of physical installation of the machine, there is no delay attributable to hard-wiring of the power connections to the machine, and it is connected with the flexible power cord.

Abstract: Intelligent mobile agents are transmitted to computers at remote sites over a network having a relatively limited bandwidth. In order to provide the mobile agents with extended capabilities, yet to allow them to access information in near-real-time, the intelligent mobile agents dock with docking systems at the network nodes. The docking systems respond to the presence of the mobile agents, and provide extended capabilities to the agent. The extended capabilities, in turn, are made available to the various network nodes at which the agents may dock by loading from portable data storage media, or preferably by occasional loading from the network at off-peak times.

Abstract: A mail-handling tower (10) is associated with a mail container conveyor (12, 312). AC line power is supplied to the tower, which in turn supplies power at low voltage to power the associated conveyor directly by way of two ports (20a, 20b) and indirectly by way of a third, higher-voltage port (20c). A power cut-off switch (8) allows emergency shut-down of the mechanical portions of the tower, and also cuts power from the conveyor (12) powered from the tower ports. The power available at the conveyor energizing ports (20a, 20b, and 20c) allows a maximum run of conveyor. When the conveyor must be run for a greater distance than that which can be powered from the tower, an additional conveyor section (312) is coupled to the remote end (12re) of the first conveyor (12), and a line power source (314) is transformed (320) to a lower voltage, and applied to a power port (240.sub.1, 260.sub.1) of the additional conveyor (312).

Abstract: An eye protection arrangement for protection against multispectral laser threats includes goggles or spectacles with a tunable etalon optical filter. In one embodiment, the optical filter is fixed-tuned to a safe frequency. In another embodiment, light from the laser being used is sensed, and used to set the protective goggles to a different wavelength than the laser. In yet another embodiment of the invention, the protective optical filters have a comb response, and additional protection is provided by optically cascading two filters, each having a somewhat different comb response, so as to reduce the number of transmission spectra.

Abstract: Planishing or stress relief in a welded joint (34) is accomplished with a hammer (12) and a backing bar (26). The hammer is applied on a first side (1) to a first surface (31) of the structure (30). To indicate the proper position of the backing bar, a first magnet (20; 320) is associated with the hammer, and a magnetic sensor arrangement (24; 224; 300) is located on the other side (2) of the structure. In one embodiment, the sensor arrangement is a second magnet (24) which is held in place by the magnetic field (40) of the first magnet. In a second embodiment, the sensor includes a line array (262) of individual sensors, each associated with an indicator of a line array (264) of indicators. In a third embodiment, the sensor includes a line array (300) of two magnetic sensors, which are coupled to a differential indicator (324).

Abstract: An electric vehicle is controlled to conform its operation to that of a conventional internal-combustion-engine powered vehicle. In some embodiments, the charging of the batteries by the auxiliary source of electricity and from dynamic braking is ramped in magnitude when the batteries lie in a state of charge between partial charge and full charge, with the magnitude of the charging being related to the relative state of charge of the battery. The deficiency between traction motor demand and the energy available from the auxiliary electrical source is provided from the batteries in an amount which depends upon the state of the batteries, so that the full amount of the deficiency is provided when the batteries are near full charge, and little or no energy is provided by the batteries when they are near a discharged condition. At charge states of the batteries between near-full-charge and near-full-discharge, the batteries supply an amount of energy which depends monotonically upon the charge state.

Abstract: A spacecraft according to the invention includes a pair of propellant tanks, with the nominal center of mass of the spacecraft located therebetween. Propellant is coupled from the tanks to a velocity-change-inducing thruster by a controllable coupling arrangement. Unwanted torques may occur which tend to perturb the attitude. An attitude control arrangement generates an error signal in response to deviations of the attitude from the desired attitude. The error signal is processed to control the propellant coupling arrangement, to cause propellant to be used preferentially from at least one of the tanks in a manner which tends to move the actual center of mass relative to the axis of thrust or line of action of the thruster. In one embodiment of the invention, the controllable coupling arrangement includes a manifold for coupling propellant from the tanks to the thruster, a tank of pressurizing gas, and a controllable manifold coupling the tank of pressurizing gas to the propellant tanks.

Abstract: A speech coding system and associated method rely on a speech encoder and a speech decoder. The speech decoder includes a Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) filter having an input and an output. The LPC filter provides synthesized speech at the output in response to voiced and unvoiced excitation provided at the input. A harmonic generator for providing voiced excitation to the input of the LPC filter includes a spectral formant enhancer for attenuating the amplitude of harmonics generate by the harmonic generator in spectral valleys between format peaks of respective frames of voiced speech. The system and method reduce perceived buzziness while increasing perceived spectral depth of synthesized speech at the output of the LPC filter.

Abstract: A speech coding system and associated method relies on a speech encoder and a speech decoder. The encoder includes a spectral quantizer for computing line spectral frequencies (LSFs) for respective frames of speech and for quantizing the LSFs to obtain a minimum bit representation of a spectral envelope of each respective frame of speech. For even numbered frames of speech the LSFs are quantized using a vector quantization technique. For odd numbered frames of speech samples the LSFs are quantized using a dynamic bit allocation (DBA) method. The dynamic bit allocation method determines an interpolation factor for interpolating between the LSFs of the previous and next frames. According to the dynamic bit allocation method the most perceptually important LSFs are represented by relatively more bits, while the least perceptually important LSFs are represented by relatively fewer bits.

Abstract: A controller for a hybrid electric system such as a hybrid electric vehicle includes a load, a battery, and a controllable source of auxiliary electricity. The state of charge (SOC) of the battery is estimated, and an error signal is generated which represents the difference between a desired and actual SOC. The SOC error signal is processed by at least integration, to produce a source signal representing the desired auxiliary source current. A second error signal is generated between the actual current. from the auxiliary source and the desired current from the auxiliary source. The second error signal is processed, at least by integration, to produce a control signal for controlling the auxiliary signal source.

Abstract: A method for forming coatings of constant thickness on sheets of dielectric substrate (10), which may be curved, includes the step of adhesively applying foil (12) to one side of the dielectric substrate. An electrode (16) is set at a constant distance (D) from the side (10fs) of the substrate to be coated. If the substrate is curved, the electrode is preferably also curved. The region to be coated is evacuated, gaseous precursor materials are infused into the gap, and voltage is applied between the foil (12) and the electrode (16) sufficient to ionize the precursors to a plasma state, whereupon the deposition occurs. The foil may be applied as an adhesive-backed foil. The adhesive may be electrically conductive.

Abstract: A radar or GPS receiving system uses an antenna array to produce multiple antenna beams directed toward multiple targets or spacecraft. Stand-off jammers produce signals which tend to be received on the sidelobes of the antenna beams and to disrupt system operation. An array of autonomous or adaptive nullers process the received signals to produce weights which adjust the antenna nulls to direct them toward the jammers. The antenna nulls of one beam pattern are compared with the nulls of other beam patterns. Normal between-sidelobe nulls will not occur at the same angle on all of the patterns, but those nulls generated by the nullers will occur at the same angle. The directions to the jammers are deemed to be those directions in which all beam patterns have nulls.

Abstract: Interconnections are made through a planar circuit by a monolithic short-circuited transmission path which extends from a circuit portion of the planar circuit to the opposite side. The opposite side is ground sufficiently to remove the short-circuiting plate, thereby separating the previously monolithic conductors, and exposing ends of the separated conductors of the transmission path. Connection is made between the exposed conductors of the transmission path and the registered contacts of a second planar circuit by means of electrically conductive, compliant fuzz buttons. The transmission path may be a coaxial path useful for RF.

Abstract: A reflective modulator (10) includes a light splitter (12) which divides light into two portions, one of which is applied to a directional coupler (14) by a first path (20), and the other of which is applied to the directional coupler (14) by way of cascaded electrooptic (e-o) modulators (18a, 18b). One port of the directional coupler (14) is terminated in a reflector (22), and the other in an absorptive termination (24). Electrical signals A and B are applied to the modulators (18a, 18b), with the result of generation of sum and difference frequencies modulating the light. The light leaves the reflective modulator (10) and is coupled to a utilization apparatus (64) by a second directional coupler (28). A further e-o modulator (26) may be coupled in the first path, for controlling the long-term average phase shift. In a particularly advantageous embodiment of the invention, the signal sources (30a, 30b) are elemental antennas of an array (30).

Abstract: A speech coding system and associated method relies on a speech coder and a speech decoder. The speech coder provides speech spectrum information, including Line Spectral Frequency (LSF) information, for respective frames of speech. The LSF information is provided to the speech decoder. The speech decoder includes an LSF smoothing filter comprising an adaptive finite impulse response filter for averaging consecutive LSFs which are similar. Consecutive LSFs which are dissimilar are not averaged. The system and method causes a reduction in the shaky quality of synthesized speech without causing a corresponding decrease in the clarity of the synthesized speech.

Abstract: A vocoder transmitter (12) sends coded speech to a vocoder receiver (16) over a limited-bandwidth channel (14). The transmitter includes a LPC-residual-based first gain estimator (46), which gain value works well with women's voices, but less so with men's. A second, analysis-by-synthesis, gain estimator (42) therein, uses a unit-gain version (342) of the receiver's synthesizer, whose input (24) and output (310) speech power is estimated, to produce the second gain value from their ratio (312). The second gain value has been found to work well with men's voices, but to produce "explosive" artifacts with women's. A combiner (518) weights these two gain estimates, under control of the estimated pitch, to produce the vocoder gain estimate transmitted to the vocoder receiver (16). In a particular embodiment the first gain estimate predominates at low pitch periods, and the second gain estimate at higher ones, with crossover at about 45 sample lags for an 8000 Hz sampling rate.

Abstract: A spacecraft cellular communication system (10) includes a spacecraft (12) with an antenna (12a) which produces multiple "spot" beams (20a, 20b, . . . ) for serving user terminals (16) lying in the footprints (20af, 20bf, . . . ) of the beams. The communication system is controlled by a network control center (NCC 18), which produces forward control signals (608, 611, 613). The forward control signals include high-margin (H) portions and lower-margin (LM) portions. In order to minimize the power required to transmit the forward control signals from the spacecraft, the number of forward control signal carriers is limited to one per antenna beam. In order to minimize the peak-to-average power requirement placed on the spacecraft power source (12s, 12pc), the high-margin portions (H) of the forward control signals of the various antenna beams are mutually offset in time or time-interleaved.

Abstract: A speech coding system (10) and associated method relies on a speech encoder (15) and a speech decoder (20). The speech decoder (20) includes a harmonic generator (70) which modulates the phase of each generated harmonic with a low frequency, low bandwidth signal to remove the buzzy quality of the speech and to produce natural sounding speech. The amplitude of the phase modulating signal is adjusted in accordance with the harmonic magnitude. For harmonics residing in a spectral valley the amplitude of the modulating signal is relatively large and for harmonics residing near spectral peaks, the amplitude of the modulation signal is relatively small.

Abstract: An electric vehicle (10) includes a traction motor (26) which drives the wheels (30a, 30b) by way of a differential (28), if desired. The traction motor (26) is controlled by a controller (24) which responds to torque command signals, to cause the motor (26) to produce the commanded torque. An accelerator pedal (12) is coupled to a position transducer (16) which converts pedal position into digital signals. The digital signals representing pedal position are applied as addresses to a memory (22) to access the stored signals. The memory is preprogrammed with torque signals representing the torque desired at a given pedal depression. In a preferred embodiment, the preprogrammed signals represent torques which are monotonically related to the pedal position, although some deviation may be acceptable in small portions of the operating range. The memory signals resulting from a given pedal position are applied to the controller, for causing the controller to command the motor to produce the specified torque.

Abstract: A low-profile transformer or inductor includes a leg of a magnetically permeable core. A tube-type winding arrangement is made by use of a flat, flexible dielectric sheet, on one side of which a broad conductive area is affixed, and on the other side of which a plurality of mutually parallel elongated regions are affixed. The dielectric sheet is rolled into a tube defining a parting line which is perpendicular to the axes of elongation of the conductive strips. The discontinuous elongated strips are formed into a continuous winding by means of stitches. The stitches may be through vias extending through overlapping regions of the tube to interconnect ends of the strip conductors, or may be generated by an HDI conductor overlying the ends of the strip conductors, with through vias making connections to the ends of the strip conductors and to HDI conductors.