Patents by Inventor Michael Kronthaler

Michael Kronthaler 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).

  • Publication number: 20230356328
    Abstract: A method for butt welding of flat metal blanks in a welding machine, where two metal blanks are placed on a conveyor unit by feed devices and secured by holding means. Two edges of two metal blanks to be welded together are placed together to form a butt joint with the smallest possible gap and then welded together using a welding laser. The gap width is measured and controlled by means of the measured values from the welding process. The gap width is measured by means of the reflected-light method and the true gap width by means of the transmitted light method in such a way that the missing area and the missing volume in the gap can be estimated accurately.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 16, 2021
    Publication date: November 9, 2023
    Inventors: Daniel Stäubli, Michael Kronthaler
  • Patent number: 11389891
    Abstract: A method for butt-welding of sheet metal, especially bodywork in the motor vehicle industry, where at least two flat workpieces with any desired contours are fed to a machining process. In a first sub-process, the workpieces are positioned in relation to one another forming a minimal gap and secured in place with holding means. In another sub-process, the position and width of the gap are measured continuously immediately before welding together and the measurements are used to control a laser welding head. The laser welding head is fit with a rotatable twin-spot lens, where the relative alignment of a main spot to an auxiliary spot is controlled depending on the absolute position of the gap and the gap width during the welding process while the processing lens of the laser welding head is rotated around the laser beam axis with the angle of rotation alpha.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 17, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 19, 2022
    Assignee: ANDRITZ Soutec AG
    Inventors: Michael Kronthaler, Hanspeter Meyer, Jean-Frédéric Clerc, Daniel Stäubli
  • Publication number: 20190358735
    Abstract: A method for butt-welding of sheet metal, especially bodywork in the motor vehicle industry, where at least two flat workpieces with any desired contours are fed to a machining process. In a first sub-process, the workpieces are positioned in relation to one another forming a minimal gap and secured in place with holding means. In another sub-process, the position and width of the gap are measured continuously immediately before welding together and the measurements are used to control a laser welding head. The laser welding head is fit with a rotatable twin-spot lens, where the relative alignment of a main spot to an auxiliary spot is controlled depending on the absolute position of the gap and the gap width during the welding process while the processing lens of the laser welding head is rotated around the laser beam axis with the angle of rotation alpha.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 17, 2019
    Publication date: November 28, 2019
    Inventors: Michael Kronthaler, Hanspeter Meyer, Jean-Frédéric Clerc, Daniel Stäubli
  • Publication number: 20060059142
    Abstract: A method, system, and apparatus are directed towards enabling a subscriber of an online dating service to perform a search for potential candidates to a long-term relationship. Various search criteria may be employed to generate an initial list of candidates. The invention employs the search criteria to identify a potential candidate list for the user. The invention further allows the user to edit inline with a display of the potential candidates various search criteria components using, for example, a drop-down menu to identify an importance of a search criteria component, or to otherwise revise the search criteria. The revised search criteria may then be employed in revising the potential candidate list.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 2, 2005
    Publication date: March 16, 2006
    Applicant: Yahoo! Inc.
    Inventors: Stanislav Zvinyatskovsky, Michael Kronthal, Brenten Pennock, Tracy Rocca, Ramsey Ksar, Grant Wong