Patents by Inventor Bernhard Gächter

Bernhard Gächter 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: 7742176
    Abstract: The aim of the invention is to determine the actual position and/or actual orientation of a measuring appliance (4b). To this end, at least two reference points (2b?) lying in a spatial segment (5?) scanned by a laser beam are detected and measured in terms of the distance thereinbetween and the inclination angle thereof. The actual position of the measuring appliance (4b) can be deduced from the known positions of said reference points (2b?) arranged in a detectable manner and the associated distances and inclination angle thereof. The detection, monitoring and measuring of the reference points is carried out by the measuring appliance (4b) in an automated manner, the measuring appliance (4b) and specifically embodied elements associated with the reference points (2b?) forming a local positioning and/or orientation measuring system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2004
    Date of Patent: June 22, 2010
    Assignee: Leica Geosystems AG
    Inventors: Bernhard Braunecker, Bernhard Gächter, Beat Aebischer
  • Patent number: 7480316
    Abstract: A laser source is used in a geodesic device to improve the emission of laser light, in which the laser diodes emitting multimodal radiation are influenced by a mode-selective component such that the laser radiation emitted by the laser source has monomodal character. An edge emitter or a vertical semiconductor emitter with an external cavity, is hence used, in which a mode selective component is arranged, for example, a monomode fibre or resonator mirror, which has the effect of a mode-selective resonator construction. Components with negative dispersion can be used for pulse compression to compensate for the greater pulse duration generated by the lengthened cavity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 20, 2009
    Assignee: Leica Geosystems AG
    Inventors: Bernhard Gächter, Bernhard Braunecker
  • Publication number: 20070064246
    Abstract: The aim of the invention is to determine the actual position and/or actual orientation of a measuring appliance (4b). To this end, at least two reference points (2b?) lying in a spatial segment (5?) scanned by a laser beam are detected and measured in terms of the distance thereinbetween and the inclination angle thereof. The actual position of the measuring appliance (4b) can be deduced from the known positions of said reference points (2b?) arranged in a detectable manner and the associated distances and inclination angle thereof. The detection, monitoring and measuring of the reference points is carried out by the measuring appliance (4b) in an automated manner, the measuring appliance (4b) and specifically embodied elements associated with the reference points (2b?) forming a local positioning and/or orientation measuring system.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 21, 2004
    Publication date: March 22, 2007
    Inventors: Bernhard Braunecker, Bernhard Gachter, Beat Aebischer
  • Patent number: 6984837
    Abstract: In order to improve target illumination, a light source (2) of an emitter, which has a laser diode (3) configured as an edge emitter with a wavelength of 1,550 nm, has beam forming optics (4) mounted downstream in relation thereto, which comprise a cylindrical lens (7) and a first deflection element (8) with three fields having different diffraction structures. Said deflection element are located next to one another and crosswise in relation to the first fields and which also have different diffraction structures. Said deflection element directs the partial beams to the aperture of a collimator (1) in such a way that the partial beams substantially fill said aperture. The first deflection element (8) and a mount (6) for the cylindrical lens (7) are integral and, alike the second deflection element (10), are made of plastic. Both parts are glued to opposite sides of the frontal areas of a block (5) made of glass.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2006
    Assignee: Leica Geosystems A.G.
    Inventors: Bernhard Gächter, Andreas Schilling, Laurent Stauffer, Urs Vokinger
  • Patent number: 6714285
    Abstract: In order to improve target illumination a light emitter comprises several partial light sources (3a, 3b, 3c, 3d), the partial beams (5a, 5b, 5c, 5d) of which are collected by means of a beam collector optic (2) and directed to the aperture of a collimator (1). The beam collector optic (2) comprises two half-mirrored sheets (12a, 12b), which each direct two similarly polarized partial beams (5a, b; 5c, d) side by side onto a polarization cube (13), where the pairs of partial beams which are polarized perpendicular and orthogonal to each other are overlaid.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 2003
    Date of Patent: March 30, 2004
    Assignee: Leica Geosystems A.G.
    Inventors: Bernhard Gächter, Urs Vokinger
  • Publication number: 20030164937
    Abstract: In order to improve target illumination a light emitter comprises several partial light sources (3a, 3b, 3c, 3d), the partial beams (5a, 5b, 5c, 5d) of which are collected by means of a beam collector optic (2) and directed to the aperture of a collimator (1). The beam collector optic (2) comprises two half-mirrored sheets (12a, 12b), which each direct two similarly polarised partial beams (5a, b; 5c, d) side by side onto a polarisation cube (13), where the pairs of partial beams which are polarised perpendicular and orthogonal to each other are overlaid.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 5, 2003
    Publication date: September 4, 2003
    Inventors: Bernhard Gachter, Urs Vokinger
  • Patent number: 6516286
    Abstract: To measure the distance to targets, local maxima exceeding a threshold (&egr;) and being associated with a correlation function (f) are determined, the reference values of which are obtained from scalar products of a received signal (e), produced by reflections of an optical pulse by the targets, and number of comparison functions, copies of a reference function (r) which are shifted as a function of time, and the transit times of the reflections are derived from the time-related shifts of the corresponding comparison functions. By interpolation with respect to the time-related shifts or optimization thereof, for example by adjusting them so that the orthogonal distance of the received signal (e) from the vector space which is spanned by the corresponding comparison functions is a minimum, the transit times can be determined even more accurately.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 2000
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2003
    Assignee: Leica Geosystems AG
    Inventors: Beat Aebischer, Christian Betschon, Bernhard Gächter, Georg Orawez, Ernst Ramseier, Esther Rutishauser