Patents by Inventor Jeffrey S. Steinman

Jeffrey S. Steinman 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: 6324495
    Abstract: A synchronous parallel system for emulation and discrete event simulation having parallel nodes responds to received messages at each node by generating event objects having individual time stamps, stores only the changes to the state variables of the simulation object attributable to the event object and produces corresponding messages. The system refrains from transmitting the messages and changing the state variables while it determines whether the changes are superseded, and then stores the unchanged state variables in the event object for later restoral to the simulation object if called for. This determination preferably includes sensing the time stamp of each new event object and determining which the new event object has the earliest time stamp as the local event horizon, determining the earliest local event horizon of the nodes as the global event horizon, and ignoring events whose time stamps are less than the global event horizon.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 27, 2001
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    Inventor: Jeffrey S. Steinman
  • Patent number: 5850538
    Abstract: The present invention is embodied in new priority queue data structures for event list management of computer simulations, and includes a new priority queue data structure and an improved event horizon applied to priority queue data structures. The new priority queue data structure is a Qheap and is made out of linked lists for robust, fast, reliable, and stable event list management and uses a temporary unsorted list to store all items until one of the items is needed. Then the list is sorted, next, the highest priority item is removed, and then the rest of the list is inserted in the Qheap. Also, an event horizon is applied to binary tree and splay tree priority queue data structures to form the improved event horizon for event management.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 1997
    Date of Patent: December 15, 1998
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    Inventor: Jeffrey S. Steinman
  • Patent number: 5794005
    Abstract: The present invention is embodied in a method of performing object-oriented simulation and a system having interconnected processor nodes operating in parallel to simulate mutual interactions of a set of discrete simulation objects distributed among the nodes as a sequence of discrete events changing state variables of respective simulation objects so as to generate new event-defining messages addressed to respective ones of the nodes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 12, 1994
    Date of Patent: August 11, 1998
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    Inventor: Jeffrey S. Steinman
  • Patent number: 5781762
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a system for performing proximity detection in computer simulations on parallel processing architectures utilizing a distribution list which includes movers and sensor coverages which check in and out of grids. Each mover maintains a list of sensors that detect the mover's motion as the mover and sensor coverages check in and out of the grids. Fuzzy grids are included by fuzzy resolution parameters to allow movers and sensor coverages to check in and out of grids without computing exact grid crossings. The movers check in and out of grids while moving sensors periodically inform the grids of their coverage. In addition, a lookahead function is also included for providing a generalized capability without making any limiting assumptions about the particular application to which it is applied. The lookahead function is initiated so that risk-free synchronization strategies never roll back grid events.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 1997
    Date of Patent: July 14, 1998
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    Inventors: Jeffrey S. Steinman, Frederick P. Wieland
  • Patent number: 5652871
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a system for performing proximity detection in computer simulations on parallel processing architectures utilizing a distribution list which includes movers and sensor coverages which check in and out of grids. Each mover maintains a list of sensors that detect the mover's motion as the mover and sensor coverages check in and out of the grids. Fuzzy grids are included by fuzzy resolution parameters to allow movers and sensor coverages to check in and out of grids without computing exact grid crossings. The movers check in and out of grids while moving sensors periodically inform the grids of their coverage. In addition, a lookahead function is also included for providing a generalized capability without making any limiting assumptions about the particular application to which it is applied. The lookahead function is initiated so that risk-free synchronization strategies never roll back grid events.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 1995
    Date of Patent: July 29, 1997
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    Inventors: Jeffrey S. Steinman, Frederick P. Wieland