Patents Examined by Amy He
  • Patent number: 10393691
    Abstract: A system and method for incorporating presence-sensing technology into furniture is provided. More particularly, the invention relates to incorporating a conductive medium into the periphery of a furniture item, such as an adjustable bed, for detecting the presence of a user or other body. The bed includes a mattress with a covering material and a tape edge surrounding the perimeter of the mattress. A capacitive wire is coupled the tape edge, and is adapted to have a voltage based on proximity of an object to the capacitive wire. The bed also includes a processor coupled to the capacitive wire. The processor receives information provided by the capacitive wire, determines when a change in voltage satisfies a threshold, and indicates whether presence is detected. Based on a determination of presence, or lack of presence, a variety of corresponding features of the adjustable bed may be activated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 27, 2019
    Assignee: L&P Property Management Company
    Inventors: William Robert Rohr, Ryan Edward Chacon
  • Patent number: 10386398
    Abstract: According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, an electronic device is provided which comprises: a substrate; an integrated circuit; a layer of conductive glue between the substrate and the integrated circuit; at least one first electrode connected to the conductive glue and at least one second electrode connected to the conductive glue; wherein the first electrode and the second electrode are arranged to receive a voltage generator input, such that a capacitance develops between said first electrode and second electrode, wherein at least a part of said capacitance develops through the layer of conductive glue; and wherein the first electrode and the second electrode are arranged to output said capacitance. According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, a corresponding method of manufacturing an electronic device is conceived.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: NXP B.V.
    Inventor: Thomas Suwald
  • Patent number: 10379191
    Abstract: The disclosure relates to an apparatus and a method for vector scattering parameter (s-parameter) measurements, and more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for providing a simple, low cost solution for tests requiring vector s-parameter measurements. The apparatus includes a source which provides an input signal, a divider which splits the input signal to a reference signal and a testing signal, a phase shifter which shifts the reference signal by a first phase and outputs a phase shifted signal, a device under test (DUT) which shifts the testing signal by a second phase and outputs a DUT shifted signal, a combiner which combines the phase shifted signal and the DUT shifted signal into a combined signal, and a detector which detects a product of the phase shifted signal and the DUT shifted signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 13, 2019
    Assignee: GLOBALGOUNDRIES INC.
    Inventors: Adem G. Aydin, Hanyi Ding
  • Patent number: 10359384
    Abstract: The field is sensors used in the ground and in particular the provision of a sensor array element for a sensor array useable in housing that has a tapered internal and external shape. The lack of air spaces and gaps, in particular, between the outer surface of the hollow elongate sensor housing and the surrounding ground is substantially avoided when using a tapered housing. A sensor array element is disclosed including a carrier sheet of flexible material formable into a shape which substantially conforms with the shape of the inner wall of said elongate housing. The carrier sheet has electrically conductive regions wherein at least one pair of electrically conductive regions are shaped and located near enough each other to form a capacitive element. The carrier sheet has at least two pairs of electrically conductive regions forming a pair of capacitive elements, and adjacent pairs of capacitive elements have a different diameter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2019
    Assignee: SENTEK PTY LTD.
    Inventor: Michael Portmann
  • Patent number: 10330703
    Abstract: Probe systems and methods including electric contact detection. The probe systems include a probe assembly and a chuck. The probe systems also include a translation structure configured to operatively translate the probe assembly and/or the chuck and an instrumentation package configured to detect contact between the probe system and a device under test (DUT) and to test operation of the DUT. The instrumentation package includes a continuity detection circuit, a test circuit, and a translation structure control circuit. The continuity detection circuit is configured to detect electrical continuity between a first probe electrical conductor and a second probe electrical conductor. The test circuit is configured to electrically test the DUT. The translation structure control circuit is configured to control the operation of the translation structure. The methods include monitoring continuity between a first probe and a second probe and controlling the operation of a probe system based upon the monitoring.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2019
    Assignee: FormFactor Beaverton, Inc.
    Inventors: Sia Choon Beng, Kazuki Negishi
  • Patent number: 10330704
    Abstract: An electrical safety product circuit topology and its equivalent variations for sensing, control, and reporting of household AC wall current, voltage, power, and energy use, and status of its Ground-and-Arc-Fault-Interrupting internal circuit breaker, is presented herein. The architecture includes any choice of telemetry platform, presumes a plurality of its kind join a wireless network with a plurality of other products endowed with the same platform faculty. Topology variations claimed include current and differential current sensing by toroid or other transformer or by Hall semiconductor means, and include fault condition recognition by microprocessor-based algorithms, or by various analog circuit or digital signal processing (DSP) means. Embodiment variations claimed include any modular circuit breaker panel component form factor, any in-wall outlet or switch-box form factor, and any plug-in AC socket module, in-cord module, and outlet strip form factor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 25, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2019
    Inventor: Karl E. Hase
  • Patent number: 10325120
    Abstract: According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, an electronic device is provided which comprises: a substrate; an integrated circuit; a layer of glue between the substrate and the integrated circuit; a set of driving electrodes coupled to the glue and to the integrated circuit; a receiving electrode coupled to the glue and to the integrated circuit; a counter electrode coupled to the glue and to the substrate; wherein the glue comprises conductive particles which electrically connect the receiving electrode, the counter electrode and at least a part of the set of driving electrodes, such that, if drive currents are provided to said set of driving electrodes, at least a part of the drive currents flows to the receiving electrode through the conductive particles and the counter electrode. According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, a corresponding method of manufacturing an electronic device is conceived.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 14, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 18, 2019
    Assignee: NXP B.V.
    Inventor: Thomas Suwald
  • Patent number: 10317442
    Abstract: Provided is a flexible, durable capacitive sensor that achieves high flexibility in designing wiring arrangement. A capacitive sensor includes a dielectric layer and a plurality of electrode units placed on both sides of the dielectric layer in the front-back direction. The electrode unit includes an insulating layer having through holes extending therethrough in the front-rear direction, electrode layers placed on one side of the insulating layer in the front-back direction, and jumper wiring layers placed on the other side of the insulating layer in the front-back direction and electrically connected to the electrode layers through the through holes. The insulating layer has an elongation at break of 60% or more, a tension set of less than 5%, and a volume resistivity of 1.0×1010 ?·cm or more.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 18, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: SUMITOMO RIKO COMPANY LIMITED
    Inventors: Junya Kawaguchi, Tomohiro Fujikawa, Yutaro Taguchi, Hiroshi Yamada
  • Patent number: 10317445
    Abstract: An RF electronic impedance tuner uses multiple PIN diodes, Varactors or MOSFETs, mounted in a low loss slab-line, between the bottom surface of the center conductor and ground, are DC controlled individually and spaced appropriately along the slab-line in order to generate maximum Gamma and bandwidth. The electronic tuner is combined with a slide screw tuner, using the same slab-line in various configurations, before, after or sharing the same slab-line section, mounted on top of each-other. Calibration on a VNA allows high Gamma and harmonic tuning.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 20, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Inventor: Christos Tsironis
  • Patent number: 10309990
    Abstract: A measuring and analyzing device is described which comprises a housing, a spectrum analyzer unit for analyzing a spectrum of a signal received, and a multimeter unit for measuring currents, voltages, resistances and/or connectivities. Said housing encompasses said spectrum analyzer unit and said multimeter unit. Said device is a handheld and portable measuring and analyzing device. Further, a method for measuring and analyzing signals is described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2019
    Assignee: Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG
    Inventor: Ben Ooi Zee Min
  • Patent number: 10295640
    Abstract: In a method and magnetic resonance apparatus for generating motion-corrected magnetic resonance measurement data, reference data and measurement data are acquired from multiple sub-regions of an examination region of a subject, and first and second items of movement information are respectively generated for the respective sub-regions, and motion-corrected data for the respective sub-regions is generated by transforming k-space data using the first and second items of movement information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 21, 2019
    Assignee: Siemens Healthcare GmbH
    Inventor: Thomas Beck
  • Patent number: 10274290
    Abstract: Systems and methods for calibrating a conducted electrical weapon (“CEW”) to provide a predetermined amount of current for each pulse of the stimulus signal. Providing the predetermined amount of current, close thereto, increases the effectiveness of the stimulus signal in impeding locomotion of a human or animal target. The calibration process enables a CEW to calibrate the amount of charge in a pulse of the stimulus signal in the environmental conditions where the tester operates and also in the field where the environmental conditions may be different from the environmental conditions during calibration.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 20, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2019
    Assignee: TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC.
    Inventors: Magne H. Nerheim, Valerie Renee Barry Barber-Axthelm, Eric Heindel Goodchild, Siddharth Heroor
  • Patent number: 10274563
    Abstract: Provided are an apparatus and method for sampling magnetic resonance (MR) signals received from each of a plurality of channel coils included in a radio frequency (RF) multi-coil such that intervals between two acquired signals that are adjacent in a first axis direction of a 3D K-space are non-uniform; and restoring an MR image by using the received MR signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2019
    Assignee: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Sang-cheon Choi
  • Patent number: 10228405
    Abstract: The invention relates a system for providing information about installation quality of load elements (30). Performance of power distribution systems, such as Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) systems, is depending on the overall system installation performance like quality of the connections (10) between power control devices (20) (e.g. PoE switches) and the powered load elements (30) (e.g. luminaires), Cat5/6 cable quality, cable type, length of the cables, aging of the connections, etc. The proposed system is able to provide feedback and to judge system installation performance at t=0 and over time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 12, 2019
    Assignee: PHILIPS LIGHTING HOLDING B.V.
    Inventor: Tony Petrus Van Endert
  • Patent number: 10222400
    Abstract: A beam current measuring device capable of performing measurement of a beam current distribution of a charged particle beam seamlessly and continuously in an arbitrary direction is provided. The beam current measuring device includes collector electrodes whose detection regions seamlessly continue in an arrangement direction thereof.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2019
    Assignee: NISSIN ION EQUIPMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Hideyasu Une, Tetsuro Yamamoto, Yoshihiro Takigami
  • Patent number: 10222344
    Abstract: A gas sensor including a first sensing component, a second sensing component and a voltage enhancement circuit is provided. The first sensing component is coupled between a first voltage and a first node, where an impedance value of the first sensing component is proportional to a gas concentration. The second sensing component is coupled between the first node and a second voltage, where an impedance value of the second sensing component is inversely proportional to the gas concentration. The voltage enhancement circuit is coupled to the first node to receive a node voltage provided by the first node, and correspondingly provides a gas sensing voltage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 7, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2019
    Assignee: Winbond Electronics Corp.
    Inventor: Yu-Hsuan Ho
  • Patent number: 10209213
    Abstract: A flexible sensor patch includes a flexible base having outer and inner surfaces and a periphery, an adhesive layer disposed on at least a portion of the outer surface, a flexible porous cover secured to the flexible base along at least major portion of the periphery. The flexible porous cover and the flexible base collectively enclose at least a major portion of a sensor. The sensor comprises a capacitive sensor element. The capacitive sensor element comprises first and second conductive electrodes and a dielectric microporous material disposed therebetween. Methods of using the flexible sensor patch are also disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 19, 2019
    Assignee: 3M INNOVATIVE PROPERTIES COMPANY
    Inventors: Myungchan Kang, Stefan H. Gryska, Michael C. Palazzotto
  • Patent number: 10209210
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a measuring device using an electrical conductivity and having a function of informing electrode contamination. The measuring device includes a main body on which a display part is disposed on a surface thereof, and a control module controlling an operation of the measuring device is mounted therein, and a sensor unit disposed on one side of the main body and dipped into the object to measure electrical characteristics of the object to be measured. The sensor unit is driven by the control of the control module, and at least includes a first sensor electrode and a second sensor electrode for measuring electrical characteristics of the object to be measured. The sensor unit further includes a reference electrode disposed between the first and second electrodes at the same distance from each other.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 13, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 19, 2019
    Assignee: HM Digital Ltd.
    Inventor: Yun-Ho Son
  • Patent number: 10203360
    Abstract: Disclosed embodiments relate to a power monitoring system. In some embodiments, the power monitoring system includes: a sampling device configured to measure patterns of energy consumed by loads included in the power system; an electric meter configured to measure an amount of second energy supplied from a system to the power system; a power supply configured to supply power stored therein or generate power to supply the power system and measure an amount of third energy supplied; and an external server configured to receive at least one of the patterns, the amount of the second energy and the amount of the third energy and analyze the patterns to acquire an amount of first energy for each of the loads. In some embodiments, the external server calculates at least one of the amount of the first, second and third energy.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 18, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 12, 2019
    Assignee: LSIS CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Hun Park, Young-Gyu Yu, Hee-Tae Roh
  • Patent number: 10197609
    Abstract: A system and method for incorporating occupancy-detecting technology into furniture is provided. More particularly, the invention relates to direct-connect device, system, and method for determining presence with respect to an automated furniture item, such as a recliner mechanism. In some aspects, a sensor is provided based on coupling one or more conductive features to a control component of the capacitance detector control component. A controller may determine the corresponding response based on occupancy detection and/or presence detection. A processor may receive information regarding changes in capacitance and determines when a change in voltage satisfies a threshold. Based on a determination of occupancy and/or presence, a variety of corresponding features of the adjustable recliner may be activated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 5, 2019
    Assignee: L&P Property Management Company
    Inventors: Ryan Edward Chacon, William Robert Rohr, Avinash Madadi, Gregory Mark Lawson