Patents by Inventor Beat Weiss

Beat Weiss has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 10050362
    Abstract: An electronic circuit card comprises a printed circuit board with electronic components. The electronic components comprise drivers for transmitting transmit (TX) signals and receivers for receiving receive (RX) signals, according to several groups of interface signals. There is further provided a connector edge, arranged at an edge of the card, and configured to allow the card to be connected to an external connector. This connector edge comprises two subsets of symmetric pins on respective (opposite) sides thereof. The drivers and the receivers are connected to the pins, for respectively conveying the TX signals and the RX signals. Pins are assigned such that, for each of the several groups of supported interface signals, any pin (of any of the subsets) connected to transmit TX signals is located opposite a pin (of the other subset) connected to receive RX signals. Pairs of consecutive pins (on each side) typically come in differential pairs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 14, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Francois Abel, Andreas Doering, Ronald P. Luijten, Mauro Spreafico, Beat Weiss
  • Publication number: 20170256874
    Abstract: An electronic circuit card comprises a printed circuit board (PCB) with electronic components thereon. The electronic components comprise drivers for transmitting TX signals and receivers for receiving RX signals, according to several groups of interface signals. There is further provided a connector edge, arranged at an edge of the card, and configured to allow the card to be connected to an external connector. This connector edge comprises two subsets of symmetric pins on respective (opposite) sides thereof. The drivers and the receivers are connected to the pins, for respectively conveying the TX signals and the RX signals. Pins are assigned such that, for each of the several groups of supported interface signals, any pin (of any of the subsets) connected to transmit TX signals is located opposite a pin (of the other subset) connected to receive RX signals. Pairs of consecutive pins (on each side) typically come in differential pairs.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 3, 2016
    Publication date: September 7, 2017
    Inventors: Francois Abel, Andreas Doering, Ronald P. Luijten, Mauro Spreafico, Beat Weiss
  • Patent number: 8477787
    Abstract: A data network includes a plurality of source nodes, at least one sink node, and at least one intermediate node, wherein routing of a reverse message from the sink node to a source node via at least one intermediate node is performed by the intermediate node using reverse path routing information data comprising a combination of source routing information data and transparent bridging information data, wherein the reverse path routing information data is constructed during propagation of a forward message from the source node to the sink node via the intermediate node.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2013
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Urs Hunkeler, Hong Linh Truong, Beat Weiss
  • Patent number: 8086248
    Abstract: Packets are periodically transmitted by a plurality of radio beacons deployed at known positions over a location estimation area. Monitoring is conducted for incoming packets. Upon receipt of a packet from a kth one of the beacons, received signal strength, RSSI, is measured at each of the antenna outputs, the packet is decoded to obtain the unique identifier and the unique sequence number, and the received signal strength at each of the antenna outputs is spatially averaged. The measuring, decoding, and spatial averaging are repeated for additional packets from the kth one of the beacons during a pre-defined time window T. The plurality of spatially averaged received signal strengths are temporally averaged over the pre-defined time window T, to obtain a spatially and temporally averaged value of received signal strength. The distance dk from the apparatus to the kth one of the beacons is approximated based on the spatially and temporally averaged value of received signal strength.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 16, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Pedro E. Coronel, Wolfgang H. Schott, Beat Weiss
  • Publication number: 20110128962
    Abstract: A data network includes a plurality of source nodes, at least one sink node, and at least one intermediate node, wherein routing of a reverse message from the sink node to a source node via at least one intermediate node is performed by the intermediate node using reverse path routing information data comprising a combination of source routing information data and transparent bridging information data, wherein the reverse path routing information data is constructed during propagation of a forward message from the source node to the sink node via the intermediate node.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 30, 2010
    Publication date: June 2, 2011
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Urs Hunkeler, Hong Linh Truong, Beat Weiss
  • Patent number: 7761233
    Abstract: An apparatus and method is disclosed for efficiently sensing and tracking objects in an indoor environment by simultaneously measuring the object movement with an inertial navigation system and a reference location positioning system. By combining the measurements obtained with accelerometers, gyroscopes, angle estimators and the reference system using an extended Kalman filter based approach, a position estimate is obtained with high reliability and precision accuracy. Improvement in performance is obtained by the incorporation of dynamic mode switching and forward-backward smoothing in the location position estimator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2006
    Date of Patent: July 20, 2010
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Wolfgang Hans Schott, Simeon Furrer, Beat Weiss
  • Publication number: 20090323510
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for modulating sub-carrier symbols to an intermediate-frequency OFDM signal having even and odd samples, including following steps: transforming a number N of the sub-carrier symbols to pre-processed sub-carrier symbols; performing a complex inverse discrete Fourier transformation (IDFT) on the pre-processed sub-carrier symbols to generate complex output symbols; and transforming the complex output symbols to the intermediate-frequency OFDM signal, wherein the sub-carrier symbols are transformed so that the even and odd samples of the intermediate-frequency OFDM signal are given by real and imaginary parts of the complex output symbols.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 19, 2004
    Publication date: December 31, 2009
    Inventors: Simeon Furrer, Jens Jelitto, Wolfgang Schott, Beat Weiss
  • Publication number: 20090286548
    Abstract: Packets are periodically transmitted by a plurality of radio beacons deployed at known positions over a location estimation area. Monitoring is conducted for incoming packets. Upon receipt of a packet from a kth one of the beacons, received signal strength, RSSI, is measured at each of the antenna outputs, the packet is decoded to obtain the unique identifier and the unique sequence number, and the received signal strength at each of the antenna outputs is spatially averaged. The measuring, decoding, and spatial averaging are repeated for additional packets from the kth one of the beacons during a pre-defined time window T. The plurality of spatially averaged received signal strengths are temporally averaged over the pre-defined time window T, to obtain a spatially and temporally averaged value of received signal strength. The distance dk from the apparatus to the kth one of the beacons is approximated based on the spatially and temporally averaged value of received signal strength.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 16, 2008
    Publication date: November 19, 2009
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Pedro E. Coronel, Wolfgang H. Schott, Beat Weiss
  • Patent number: 7356019
    Abstract: The invention relates to a conversion of a pulse modulated signal to a radio frequency signal enabling use of applications and protocols designed for wireless optical links on radio frequency channels. The method comprises receiving the pulse modulated input signal, decoding the received pulse modulated input signal into a decoded data bit-stream, encoding the decoded data bit-stream into a recoded data bit-stream, under use of the recoded data bit-stream modulating a radio frequency signal, and transmitting the modulated radio frequency signal. In the receiver path a received radio frequency signal is converted to a pulse modulated output signal by the steps of demodulating the received radio frequency signal into a demodulated data bit-stream, decoding the demodulated data bit-stream into a received data bit-stream, encoding the received data bit-stream into a pulse modulated output signal, and forwarding the pulse modulated output signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2004
    Date of Patent: April 8, 2008
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Walter Hirt, Fritz Gfeller, Beat Weiss
  • Patent number: 7349462
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a method and apparatus for adjusting gain setting, receiver clock frequency, and symbol timing in an OFDM radio receiver. The method is based on the reception of a preamble with known periodic training sequences transmitted prior to user data over the radio channel. By computing a periodicity metric, an inner receiver detects the presence of periodic signals in the received data sequence, provides means to set the Variable Gain Amplifier VGA gain in the radio frontend, and estimates frequency offsets between the transmit and receive clock. Matched filters are used to determine the symbol timing. A finite-state-machine schedules various tasks during the receiver startup.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2003
    Date of Patent: March 25, 2008
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Wolfgang Schott, Pedro E. Coronel, Simeon Furrer, Jens Jelitto, Beat Weiss, Dietrich Maiwald
  • Publication number: 20080004796
    Abstract: An apparatus and method is disclosed for efficiently sensing and tracking objects in an indoor environment by simultaneously measuring the object movement with an inertial navigation system and a reference location positioning system. By combining the measurements obtained with accelerometers, gyroscopes, angle estimators and the reference system using an extended Kalman filter based approach, a position estimate is obtained with high reliability and precision accuracy. Improvement in performance is obtained by the incorporation of dynamic mode switching and forward-backward smoothing in the location position estimator.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 30, 2006
    Publication date: January 3, 2008
    Inventors: Wolfgang Hans Schott, Simeon Furrer, Beat Weiss
  • Publication number: 20060164271
    Abstract: The invention relates to a conversion of a pulse modulated signal to a radio frequency signal enableing use of applications and protocols designed for wireless optical links on radio frequency channels. The method comprises receiving the pulse modulated input signal, decoding the received pulse modulated input signal into a decoded data bit-stream, encoding the decoded data bit-stream into a recoded data bit-stream, under use of the recoded data bit-stream modulating a radio frequency signal, and transmitting the modulated radio frequency signal. In the receiver path a received radio frequency signal is converted to a pulse modulated output signal by the steps of demodulating the received radio frequency signal into a demodulated data bit-stream, decoding the demodulated data bit-stream into a received data bit-stream, encoding the received data bit-stream into a pulse modulated output signal, and forwarding the pulse modulated output signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 8, 2004
    Publication date: July 27, 2006
    Inventors: Walter Hirt, Fritz Gfeller, Beat Weiss
  • Publication number: 20040161046
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a method and apparatus for adjusting gain setting, receiver clock frequency, and symbol timing in an OFDM radio receiver. The method is based on the reception of a preamble with known periodic training sequences transmitted prior to user data over the radio channel. By computing a periodicity metric, an inner receiver detects the presence of periodic signals in the received data sequence, provides means to set the Variable Gain Amplifier VGA gain in the radio frontend, and estimates frequency offsets between the transmit and receive clock. Matched filters are used to determine the symbol timing. A finite-state-machine schedules various tasks during the receiver startup.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 17, 2003
    Publication date: August 19, 2004
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Wolfgang Schott, Pedro E. Coronel, Simeon Furrer, Jens Jelitto, Beat Weiss, Dietrich Maiwald
  • Patent number: 6424442
    Abstract: Disclosed are optical transmitter and transceiver modules for data communication. Such a transceiver module comprises an array of light emitting diodes mounted on a mounting base (140) being arranged in a regular and symmetrical manner in a dome-shaped housing (142). This housing (142) comprises diffusor means for source enlargement. In addition to the transmitter part consisting of said diodes, the transceiver module comprises a receiver. The receiver has four photodiodes (143) arranged below the mounting base (140). These photodiodes are tilted and face in different directions to receive light from all around the module. The photodiodes are protected by a thin wire mesh (145) which serves as Faraday cage to reduce electro magnetic interference. A substrate (144) for electronic circuitry in SMD-Technology is situated underneath the photodiodes (143).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 25, 1997
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2002
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Fritz Gfeller, Heinz Richard, Beat Weiss