Patents Examined by Crystal J Barnes Bullock
  • Patent number: 8554386
    Abstract: Techniques for providing localized power infrastructure and data infrastructure are disclosed. A transportable system for providing localized power infrastructure and data infrastructure can include: a data network service engine configured to function as a local data network service provider; a power generation engine configured to function as a local power service provider that generates and distributes power locally; a deployment engine configured to assist in deploying one or more components of the transportable system; and a maintenance engine configured to maintain operation and security of the transportable system. In some embodiments, multiple transportable systems can be deployed and then centrally monitored or controlled as a single, utility system and/or a single data delivery infrastructure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2013
    Inventor: Serge Rutman
  • Patent number: 8543251
    Abstract: Aspects of the present invention provide a solution for controlling electricity to a device. A sensor is associated with a device that is independently coupled to an electricity distribution network. The sensor senses electricity usage for the device. Based on the sensed electricity usage for the device, an electricity usage pattern is identified for the device. This electricity usage pattern is used to identify a classification of the device. Based on this device classification the supply of electricity to the device can be controlled as needed by the provider.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 24, 2013
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Laurence J. Plant
  • Patent number: 8538598
    Abstract: In some embodiments a processor is adapted to store a relationship of power as a function of temperature and voltage, wherein the stored relationship data is to be used for managing power in a system including the processor. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 23, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 17, 2013
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Robin A. Steinbrecher, Sandeep Ahuja, Casey R. Winkel
  • Patent number: 8538732
    Abstract: An appendable system includes a plurality of appendable devices that are adapted to interoperate with each other and/or a workstation via a communication network to monitor and/or control a process. Each of the appendable devices can communicate with one or more sensors and/or control outputs and includes a housing that facilitates mounting of the appendable device to a surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 2, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 17, 2013
    Assignee: Fisher-Rosemount Systems, Inc.
    Inventors: Marion A. Keyes, IV, Trevor D. Schleiss, Mark J. Nixon, Ron Eddie, Terrence L. Belvins, Ram Ramachandran
  • Patent number: 8532795
    Abstract: A method of offline code validation and a process control system are provided. The system includes a plurality of sensors each configured to generate a sensor output value representative of a respective sensed parameter in a process plant, at least one process controller configured to receive one or more of the sensor output values and to generate a controller output value using the one or more of the sensor output values and a control algorithm associated with the at least one process controller, a plurality of controlled components configured to receive an associated controller output value, and an offline computing environment including a selectable model controller configurable to represent the at least one process controller, the model controller selectable by a user from code representing the at least one process controller and displayed on a user interface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2013
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Visweswara Prasad Adavi, Raja Balasubramaniam
  • Patent number: 8532837
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a household appliance (1) comprising a control unit (4) that maintains to execute the selected program as much as possible within the discounted rate interval when the user enters the end time (tf) for the selected program, by evaluating the clock (2) data and the momentary energy tariff signal received from the sensing means (3) within the time passing until the end time (tf) and guarantees completion of the program to be executed before the selected end time (tf).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2013
    Assignee: Arcelik Anonim Sirketi
    Inventors: Bulent Efecik, Latif Tezduyar, Ufuk Levan Yakut
  • Patent number: 8532834
    Abstract: A control system for a combined power generation and metallurgical plant facility integrates generator-side and load-side control to provide coordinated operation of the two processes. The power generation facility includes one or more generator units and the metallurgical plant facility includes one or more controllable loads. Operating characteristics of the one or more loads are fed back to the one or generator units through a master controller to determine input control parameters for the one or more generator units. Similarly control signals and operating characteristics of the one or more generators are fed forward to the one or more loads through the master controller to determine input control parameters for the one or more loads. Using feed-forward as well as feed-back loops to exchange generator output and load set-point information, power balance between the generator units and controlled loads is maintained within an operating envelope.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2013
    Assignee: Hatch Ltd.
    Inventors: Garth Delong, Ruairi Hynes, Jakob Janzen
  • Patent number: 8532807
    Abstract: A pre-operative planning and manufacturing method for orthopedic surgery includes obtaining pre-operative medical image data representing a joint portion of a patient. The method also includes constructing a three-dimensional digital model of the joint portion and manufacturing a patient-specific alignment guide for the joint portion from the three-dimensional digital model of the joint portion when the image data is sufficient to construct the three-dimensional digital model of the joint portion. The patient-specific alignment guide has a three-dimensional patient-specific surface pre-operatively configured to nest and closely conform to a corresponding surface of the joint portion of the patient in only one position relative to the joint portion. The method further includes determining, from the image data, a size of a non-custom implant to be implanted in the patient and manufacturing the non-custom implant when there is insufficient image data to construct the patient-specific alignment guide therefrom.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 6, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2013
    Assignee: Biomet Manufacturing, LLC
    Inventor: Robert Metzger
  • Patent number: 8498747
    Abstract: A drapery assembly extends and retracts a drape with a powered carrier. The carrier receives both a power signal and a command signal from a controller via an electrically powered surface of a drapery rod. The carrier supports a portion of the drape and moves linearly along the length of the drapery rod in response to the control signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2013
    Assignee: Crestron Electronics Inc.
    Inventor: George Feldstein
  • Patent number: 8483884
    Abstract: A method and system is described for controlling an electrically driven fuel pump used in the filling of a hobbyist model craft's fuel tank, (airplane, car, boat etc). The system includes a microcontroller to control the direction and run time of a brushed electric motor-driven fuel pump. A calibration feature allows operating parameters for different sized pumps and tanks to be measured and recorded in memory, then later recalled and used in the filling of pre-selected models' tank to a predetermined level simply by pressing a button to initiate the operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2013
    Inventor: Junior Lloyd Williams
  • Patent number: 8479099
    Abstract: A group management apparatus manages, as a plurality of groups, numerous installation devices installed in a plurality of buildings. The group management apparatus includes an acquiring component, a summarizing component and a screen generating component. The Acquiring component acquires operating data of the numerous installation devices via controllers. The controllers are placed in the buildings and control the numerous installation devices inside the buildings. The summarizing component summarizes, per group, operating data values that are values represented by the operating data. The screen generating component generates a screen in which results, with respect to the plurality of groups, of the operating data values having been summarized by the summarizing component are juxtaposed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2013
    Assignee: Daikin Industries, Ltd.
    Inventor: Toshiyuki Miki
  • Patent number: 8469080
    Abstract: A digital processing method of a large or medium-size sand mold includes inverting a three-dimensional CAD model of a mold into a numeric controlling code, putting a prepared sand blank on a hollow grid-shaped processing platform to proceed the digital milling procedure, bringing away waste sand generated during processing by high pressure gas blown out from a nozzle near a cutter and the waste sand entering to a collecting device below the processing platform. A device for carrying out the method is disclosed. The method and the device reduce the processing steps.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 25, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2013
    Assignee: Advanced Manufacture Technology Center China Academy of Machinery Science and Technology
    Inventors: Zhongde Shan, Xinya Li, Feng Liu, Li Zhan, Xiaoli Dong, Xianglei Wang
  • Patent number: 8457767
    Abstract: The present invention presents two new model types and a new method for evaluating a model used in the control application. These include a compound model, a hybrid model and a directional change coefficient model. The present invention allows the mixing of models with different inputs and outputs and the switching between these models based criteria for measuring optimization accuracy. The present invention allows switching between these models. The compound model is a model type that allows zooming in on the process to model parts of the data space with higher fidelity or resolution without loosing the capability to model the complete data space. The modeler does not loose any functionally over a regular neural network, but instead gains the ability to define the conditions when the model should use network weights best matched to the defined local conditions. The hybrid model is an extended version of a compound model.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2010
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2013
    Inventor: Brad Radl
  • Patent number: 8452675
    Abstract: A system for managing an inventory of process control devices in a process plant includes a computer workstation, a database storing instrument specification data for one or more process control devices used for controlling a process performed in the process plant environment, a wireless gateway adapted to wirelessly communicate with wireless enabled process control devices in the process plant environment, a communication bus interconnecting the wireless gateway, the computer workstation, and the database, an inventory control application executed by the computer workstation. The inventory control application is adapted to interrogate a received process control device via the wireless gateway to receive device data from the received process control device identifying and describing the received process control device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 6, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2013
    Assignee: Fisher-Rosemount Systems, Inc.
    Inventor: Doyle E. Broom
  • Patent number: 8425200
    Abstract: The present invention provides a technique using current sensing to control the pressure at constant level without the direct sensing of the pressure. This technique will help to reduce dependency solely on switch or sensor and their non linearity and other associated problems such as the non-repetitive behavior, being affected by EMI etc. The technique includes using a pump controller featuring one or more modules configured to respond to one or more input signals containing information about current provided from a pump; and configured to provide one or more output signals containing information to control the pump to operate at a substantially constant pressure without the direct sensing of pump pressure. The one or more modules control the operation of the pump based at least partly on a table of characteristics related to voltage and current that is calibrated for each pump.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 20, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2013
    Assignee: Xylem IP Holdings LLC.
    Inventors: Derrick Thanh Tran, Thang Quoc Dang, Rufino Naval, Jr., David L. Phillips, Jignesh N. Pandya, Ujjaval D. Joshi
  • Patent number: 8428787
    Abstract: The present invention discloses an electronic device having a power management module and a power management method thereof. Within the power management method is used for an electronic device, which has a first power module, a second power module and the loads. The power management method comprises the following step: (1) monitoring the first power module and the second power module; (2) if the first power module and the second power module are activated at the same time, sequentially stopping a supply of electric power to at least one of the loads until the electronic device has total load current smaller than a reference value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 10, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2013
    Assignees: Inventec Appliances (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Inventec Appliances Corp.
    Inventors: Yu-Feng Wu, Wen-Cheng Hus
  • Patent number: 8428768
    Abstract: Computer-enabled methods and devices allow for the ready set-up for machine instruction generation by addressing various combinations of machining patterns and tool axis orientations via the selection or designation of a machining pattern and the selection or designation of a tool axis orientation via exemplary separate menus of a user interface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 26, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2013
    Assignee: DP Technology Corp.
    Inventors: Francesco Bandini, Roberto Parigi
  • Patent number: 8420984
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a household appliance for performing a housekeeping task. The household appliance comprises a data input device (16) adapted to remotely sense a property in a sensing area (18), and a controller (22) coupled to the data input device and adapted to control an operation of the household appliance in accordance with the sensed property.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 1, 2007
    Date of Patent: April 16, 2013
    Assignee: Electrolux Home Products Corporation N.V.
    Inventors: Kersten Kaiser, Alwin Neukamm, Claudio Cenedese
  • Patent number: 8412387
    Abstract: A smart device is discussed, which is connected to a smart grid to perform a power saving function. According to an embodiment, the smart device includes a power information receiving unit configured to receive power information through the smart grid network; a power saving control unit configured to perform the power saving function for at least one apparatus based on the power information in a power saving mode; at least one mode switching unit configured to switch from the power saving mode to a manual mode according to a user command; and a manual mode operational time determining unit configured to determine a manual mode operational time for operating the at least one apparatus in the manual mode, the at least one mode switching unit further configured to switch from the manual mode back to the power saving mode, automatically, when the manual mode operational time expires.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 28, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2013
    Assignee: LG Electronics Inc.
    Inventors: Jong Soo Park, Jong Hwa Song, Woo Hyun Paik
  • Patent number: 8410922
    Abstract: A dual-technology motion sensor with an ultrasonic sensor element (transducer) and a PIR sensor element is disclosed. The dual-technology motion sensor is configured to modulate ultrasonic radiation emitted from the ultrasonic sensor element when the motion sensor detects a condition under which other wireless devices, especially ultrasound-based wireless devices, are in operation, thereby eliminating problems associated with interference.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2013
    Assignee: The Watt Stopper Inc.
    Inventors: Jon Null, Jason Joyce, Thomas L. Grey