Abstract: An ultrasonic imaging system including a power on self test (POST) and an extended self test (EST). The POST includes (a) a verification test, (b) a register test (c) a controller test, (d) a receive digital signal path test and (e) a basic front end test. The POST is initiated, performed and completed within a short time, such as three seconds, from power ON. The EST is performed after the POST at the discretion of an operator, and includes a transmit test, a transducer element test, a front end voltage test and a receive test.

Abstract: A spectral characterization method accurately characterizes an applied signal spectrum that has multiple, spectrally-separated signal peaks. The method detects signal peaks within the spectrum and measures the spectral content of that spectrum using a first measurement bandwidth that is sufficiently wide to encompass each of the signal peaks and accurately measure a signal component of the spectrum. Spectral content of the spectrum measured using a narrow measurement bandwidth that accurately characterizes a noise component of the spectrum. Signal-to-noise ratio for the signal peaks can be calculated based on the measurements performed using the first and second measurement bandwidths. The spectral characterization method is implemented using a spectral measurement instrument having an adjustable measurement bandwidth.

Abstract: The type of blade installed in a hand piece of an ultrasonic system is determined and the information used to adjust the fault detection threshold of the generator by using an impedance diagram to determine the type of blade which is connected to the hand piece. A check is performed to determine the magnitude of the blade impedance at resonance. If the hand piece is bare (i.e. no blade is attached), the magnitude of the impedance at resonance is typically less than 125 ohms. If on the other hand, a blade is connected, the impedance will be greater that 125 ohms. This value is used to indicated the presence or absence of a blade.

Abstract: An electronic unit mounted in a vehicle includes a controller unit. The electronic unit is tested by a test device using periodic communications cycled therebetween. A frame of order signal is formulated by loading data designating several ports and transmitted from the test device to the controller unit. The controller unit processes the order signal and returns the processed results to the test device. At least part of the above data are shortened from 8 bits to 4 bits, and several ports are tested in one cycle of the periodic communications. The testing time is thus reduced for the electronic unit.

Abstract: A fruit tester provides a motor driven intrusive plunger with associated sensors to determine digital data indicative of plunger position, force resisting plunger intrusion and constant pressure creep. Sensor data is presented to a computer for storage, analysis and feedback control of the plunger. The plunger powering train includes a belt driven ball screw translator to convert rotary to linear motion and an “S” type stress block with plural bridge interconnected strain gauges to sense pressure resisting intrusion to allow accurate measurements. Methods of analysis are disclosed to determine both resistance to plunger penetration and plunger creep at fixed pressure, in each of at least two concentric zones of a fruit, which are related by software for accurate determination of fruit condition as a function of time, both present and future.

Abstract: During the final testing of a printed circuit board, a test set inserts the actual serial number of a printed circuit board into one or more memory devices on the printed circuit board after reading the serial number from the printed circuit board. Further, the serial number is uniquely identified by the manufacturer in the manufacturer's database. The serial number is then transmitted to the manufacturer's database where it is stored and associated with the telecommunication switching system that the printed circuit board will be inserted into.

Abstract: An acoustic signal processor that samples acoustic data, performs a spectrum analysis of the sampled acoustic data, stores the acoustic data in corresponding frequency bins, and then filters acoustic data stored in a frequency bin by applying a power-law arithmetic operation to the frequency bin acoustic data, such that the power-law arithmetic operation is adaptively changed based on an order dependent determination of whether the frequency bin acoustic data is representative of noise or clutter, or whether it is representative of a signal of an object.

Abstract: A stator turn fault detection system and method capable of real-time detection of a stator turn fault in an electric motor is provided. The stator turn fault detector includes a feed forward neural network that when trained, using fundamental frequency sequence components of the voltage and current supplying the electric motor, will estimate a fundamental frequency sequence component of current indicative of a stator turn fault. A method for detecting a stator turn fault in an electric motor as well as a method for training a feed forward neural network for use with the stator turn fault detector is disclosed.

Abstract: A device for calculating a time gap between successive transitions of an incident signal includes an input stage which detects and selects transitions of an incident signal and calculates the time gap between each selected transition and an edge of a sampling clock signal. An assemblage of at least three blocks is also included. Each of the blocks includes a storage cell and a counter regulated by the sampling clock signal. In response to each selected current transition, a checking circuit or processor initializes the counter of the first block of the assemblage and stores in the cell of the first block the value of the time gap corresponding to the selected current transition. The contents of a block of the assemblage may then be transferred into a next block. The time interval between two successive selected transitions is determined based upon the counter values and the time gaps.

Abstract: An embedded-controller-based system, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), includes a system-on-a-chip with a processor, system bus, memory, and system-bus peripherals. The system-bus peripherals include connections to data paths that are not accessible from the system bus during execution of application programs. Associated with these connections are test drivers that include registers that can be written to by the processor via the system bus for software controllability. When the processor executes a test program, it writes test values to these registers. Some bits of the test values are used to control multiplexers so that they can decouple function block ports from the non-system-bus connections and then couple the remaining bits of the registers. In this way, a test program can write data directly to the non-system bus connections. The results of the test data being applied at the source of inter-block connections can be read from the destinations using test samplers.

Abstract: A time stamping method for threshold crossing points of an input signal uses a dithered threshold level. Digital data samples are acquired for the input signal and time marks are determined for the threshold crossings using interpolation. The time marks are stores as the time stamps. A threshold offset value generator generates a distribution of offset values for dithering the threshold value. Time interval values are generated from the time stamps and the number of occurrences of time interval values are accumulated in time bins. A time interval distribution histogram and statistical time interval distribution data, such as the mean, standard deviation and minimum and maximum time intervals may be generated.

Abstract: The time stamping method for an input signal generates time marked digital data values as a reference edge and defines at least a first time stamp in the reference edge. Digital data samples of the input signal are acquired to create a waveform record of the input signal. The digital data samples of a waveform record edge are compared to time equivalent digital data values of the reference edge to generate a error value representative of the difference between the waveform record edge and the reference edge. A time offset value is generated from the error value to vary the time location of the reference edge and the comparison and time offset generating steps are repeated to minimize the error value. The time offset value at the minimum error value is combined with a time location of nearest digital data sample of the waveform record edge to generate a waveform record edge time stamp.

Abstract: A method for recording and removing the bipolar bias from a vibration input signal. The signal is a time varying signal where the bipolar bias has an amplitude which is many times greater than the amplitude of the time varying waveform of the signal that represents the vibration of the machine. In calculating the level of the bipolar bias the method approaches a predetermined dead band asymptotically and in stable manner. The determination of the bipolar bias level occurs when the next event has occurred and the time for that determination is much shorter than the time between occurrence of the events.

Abstract: A method of concurrently performing a component test with returning test result data in a distributed environment is disclosed. In general, in order to assure compatibility of the various components in an enterprise computing system, a service test is created as part of a compatibility test suite and passed to a test application server having a test application program. The test application program makes an initial connection to the component being tested that, in response, creates a connection to a logging listener. The logging listener spawns an acceptor corresponding to the component being tested. Once spawned, the component returns test data to its corresponding acceptor concurrently with the execution of the test.

Abstract: A method is provided to represent the calculated phase space of photons emanating from medical accelerators used in photon teletherapy. The method reproduces the energy distributions and trajectories of the photons originating in the bremsstrahlung target and of photons scattered by components within the accelerator head. The method reproduces the energy and directional information from sources up to several centimeters in radial extent, so it is expected to generalize well to accelerators made by different manufacturers. The method is computationally both fast and efficient overall sampling efficiency of 80% or higher for most field sizes. The computational cost is independent of the number of beams used in the treatment plan.

Abstract: A control system for variably operable devices, such as spotlight systems (16) to follow the movements of a performer (12) over an area, derives control data from a tracking head (14) which follows the movements of the performer (12). The tracking head (14) may be operated manually to follow the performer. A frame of reference (10) is set up over the area (10A), the frame of reference including at least four calibration points (1, 2, 3, 4), any three of which are not collinear. The frame of reference (10) also includes a reference point of origin (C). Prom the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the tracking head with respect to the calibration points and from the pan and tilt angles of the tracking head, control commands for the variably operable apparatus are computed in real time.

Abstract: A beacon modulated by a pattern is authenticated by recording an array of light intensities for each point in a field of view; digitizing the array of light intensities; modifying a first array according to the digitized light-intensities and the modulation pattern; repeating these steps for additional frames at the current viewpoint; if the beacon is found then repeating these steps for additional frames; if the beacon is found and additional frames were processed then authenticating the beacon at the point in the current viewpoint corresponding to the value in the first array that exceeds a first threshold by the widest margin; if the beacon was not found, moving to a new point in the field of view and repeating the steps above; if the beacon is again not found, adjusting the modulation bit pattern x bits, and reprocessing the viewpoints in the field of view using the steps above.

Abstract: A method and system for generating a noise index for a mechanical system in which noise data is acquired over a predetermined frequency range. A fundamental harmonic frequency is chosen and this fundamental harmonic frequency is used to mark harmonic and sub-harmonic data bins. The amplitude of the harmonic and sub-harmonic data bins are recorded and a plurality of sub-harmonic bins equally offset from the center of each harmonic frequency are averaged and the average is subtracted from the preceding harmonic level. The result is accumulated as harmonic content levels to generate a harmonic index number.

Abstract: There is presented a reliable technique for measuring condition change in nonlinear data such as brain waves. The nonlinear data is filtered and discretized into windowed data sets. The system dynamics within each data set is represented by a sequence of connected phase-space points, and for each data set a distribution function is derived. New metrics are introduced that evaluate the distance between distribution functions. The metrics are properly renormalized to provide robust and sensitive relative measures of condition change. As an example, these measures can be used on EEG data, to provide timely discrimination between normal, preseizure, seizure, and post-seizure states in epileptic patients. Apparatus utilizing hardware or software to perform the method and provide an indicative output is also disclosed.

Abstract: A method for finding a probability density function (PDF) and its statistical moments for a chosen one of four newly derived probability models for an arbitrary exponential function of the forms g(x)=&agr;xme−&bgr;xn, −∞<x<∞; g ⁡ ( x ) = α ⁢   ⁢ x m ⁢ ⅇ - βx n , 0 ≤ x < ∞ ; g ⁢ ( x ) = α ⁡