Abstract: A vehicle has an electric or hybrid-electric traction drive supported by an ungrounded vehicle frame. The vehicle also has a current collector, which can be electrically connected to the traction drive and which can be brought in galvanic contact with a contact line of a grounded contact-line system to supply traction energy. The vehicle contains an electrical protection system for avoiding dangerous contact voltages on the vehicle frame or on a vehicle part connected to the vehicle frame in a conductive manner. The protection system has a first protection stage, a second protection stage, and a switching element, by which the protection system can be switched between the first and the second protection stages. The first protection stage provides greater safety from dangerous contact voltages than the second protection stage. Thus, a protection system can be provided which provides sufficient safety in all operating states of the vehicle.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method for the controlled run-up of a weaving and shedding machine, wherein the weaving and the shedding machine are connected with a controller, wherein the weaving machine is driven by means of a main drive, wherein the shedding machine is driven by means of an electric motor auxiliary drive, wherein the weaving and the shedding machine are connected by means of a common converter intermediate circuit for the energy flow transmission, wherein the shedding machine is started at a time point t0 and is run-up until to a time point t1 to an overspeed that lies above its operating rotational speed, wherein the time point t1 lies before a time point t3, wherein the weaving machine is started at a time point t2 and wherein the start phase of the weaving machine lies in the time interval from the time point t2 to the time point t3, and wherein a power transmission (feedback) by means of the converter intermediate circuit from the shedding machine to the weaving machine is carried out in t

Abstract: A vehicle control facility for the automated control of an electrical road vehicle for a route system with an energy-supply system that includes a lane-bound energy supply line, in particular an overhead line system. A position-determining unit determines a geographical position of the electrical road vehicle. A specific-lane-determining unit determines position data for a specific lane assigned to the lane-bound energy supply line. A communication interface transmits current relative positions of infrastructure features with respect to the electrical road vehicle to an external central specific-lane-determining facility and receives position data. A vehicle-control unit controls the electrical road vehicle with respect to the determined specific lane in dependence on the determined relative position of the specific lane.

Abstract: A force sensor for measuring axially occurring forces in manually operated or pneumatic presses has a central axis and an outer diameter and includes a bolt and a nut that preload between them a piezoelectric force washer with a plug connection. The washer has an inner end face defining a first bore having a first diameter with an internal thread. The bolt defines a throughbore with an internal diameter, a head portion and a hollow shaft defining a frontal external thread extending through the force washer and engaging the nut's internal thread. The nut or the head portion defines a second bore with a second diameter measuring smaller than the shafts internal diameter but at least one quarter of the outer diameter and at least as long as its diameter. The inner wall of the second bore defines a center mount for a sliding fit.

Abstract: A demodulation pixel improves the charge transport speed and sensitivity by exploiting two effects of charge transport in silicon in order to achieve the before-mentioned optimization. The first one is a transport method based on the CCD gate principle. However, this is not limited to CCD technology, but can be realized also in CMOS technology. The charge transport in a surface or even a buried channel close to the surface is highly efficient in terms of speed, sensitivity and low trapping noise. In addition, by activating a majority carrier current flowing through the substrate, another drift field is generated below the depleted CCD channel. This drift field is located deeply in the substrate, acting as an efficient separator for deeply photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Thus, another large amount of minority carriers is transported to the diffusion nodes at high speed and detected.

Abstract: The present disclosure describes optical imaging and optical detection modules that include sensors such as time-of-flight (TOF) sensors. Various implementations are described that, in some instances, can help reduce the amount of optical cross-talk between active detection pixels and reference pixels and/or can facilitate the ability of the sensor to determine an accurate phase difference to be used, for example, in distance calculations.

Abstract: A non-rail bound, electrically or hybrid-electrically driven vehicle has a current collector for feeding electric traction energy from an overhead line system. The current collector has a sliding strip that is brought into sliding contact with a contact wire of the overhead line system above a travel lane. The sliding strip arrangement is pivotable transversely to a direction of travel. The vehicle has a limiter to at least unilaterally limit the transverse pivoting range of the sliding strip arrangement substantially to the width of the vehicle. A driver assistance system assists a driver in adhering to a virtual track within the marked lane. The track width and the pivoting range are dimensioned such that, when the track is adhered to, it is possible to maintain sliding contact between the sliding strip arrangement and the contact wire.

Abstract: Optoelectronic modules (100) are operable to distinguish between signals indicative of reflections from an object of interest and signals indicative of a spurious reflection. Various modules are operable to recognize spurious reflections by means of dedicated spurious-reflection detection pixels (126) and, in some cases, also to compensate for errors caused by spurious reflections.

Abstract: A force sensor for measuring axially occurring forces in manually operated or pneumatic presses has a central axis and an outer diameter and includes a bolt and a nut that preload between them a piezoelectric force washer with a plug connection. The washer has an inner end face defining a first bore having a first diameter with an internal thread. The bolt defines a throughbore with an internal diameter, a head portion and a hollow shaft defining a frontal external thread extending through the force washer and engaging the nut's internal thread. The nut or the head portion defines a second bore with a second diameter measuring smaller than the shafts internal diameter but at least one quarter of the outer diameter and at least as long as its diameter. The inner wall of the second bore defines a center mount for a sliding fit.

Abstract: Time-of-flight (TOF) based systems using light pulse compression are described and, in some cases, can help increase demodulation contrast. Further, light pulse shaping techniques are described that, in some cases, can help reduce phase non-linearity and distance-calculation errors. The techniques can be used, for example, in measurement systems, as well as imaging systems in which a time-of-flight and/or distance information is obtained. The time-of-flight and/or distance information can be used to reconstruct and display a three-dimensional image of a scene. The light compression techniques also can be used to provide reference signals.

Abstract: A vehicle has an electric or hybrid-electric traction drive supported by an ungrounded vehicle frame. The vehicle also has a current collector, which can be electrically connected to the traction drive and which can be brought in galvanic contact with a contact line of a grounded contact-line system to supply traction energy. The vehicle contains an electrical protection system for avoiding dangerous contact voltages on the vehicle frame or on a vehicle part connected to the vehicle frame in a conductive manner. The protection system has a first protection stage, a second protection stage, and a switching element, by which the protection system can be switched between the first and the second protection stages. The first protection stage provides greater safety from dangerous contact voltages than the second protection stage. Thus, a protection system can be provided which provides sufficient safety in all operating states of the vehicle.

Abstract: A non-track-bound vehicle operates on a route electrified by an overhead contact system. The vehicle has a current collector for energy transfer between the vehicle and an overhead cable. It has a lowering mechanism for the transfer of the current collector from an upright operational position in which the current collector is in sliding contact with the contact wires into a lowered neutral position in which the current collector is arranged within a vehicle clearance profile. An actuating element is provided for the simultaneous activation of the lowering mechanism and an additional vehicle device. The activation of the actuating element is intended in a driving situation requiring the lowering of the current collector. The operation of non-track-bound vehicles is safer even in critical driving situations, such as for example, maneuvers to avoid or overtake other vehicles at high speed.

Abstract: A novel photo-sensitive element for electronic imaging purposes and, in this context, is particularly suited for time-of-flight 3D imaging sensor pixels. The element enables charge-domain photo-detection and processing based on a single gate architecture. Certain regions for n and p-doping implants of the gates are defined. This kind of single gate architecture enables low noise photon detection and high-speed charge transport methods at the same time. A strong benefit compared to known pixel structures is that no special processing steps are required such as overlapping gate structures or very high-ohmic poly-silicon deposition. In this sense, the element relaxes the processing methods so that this device may be integrated by the use of standard CMOS technology for example. Regarding time-of-flight pixel technology, a major challenge is the generation of lateral electric fields. The element allows the generation of fringing fields and large lateral electric fields.

Abstract: A pixel is formed in a semiconductor substrate (S) with a plane surface for use in a photodetector. It comprises an active region for converting incident light (In) into charge carriers, photogates (PGL, PGM, PGR) for generating a lateral electric potential (?(x)) across the active region, and an integration gate (IG) for storing charge carriers generated in the active region and a dump site (Ddiff). The pixel further comprises separation-enhancing means (SL) for additionally enhancing charge separation in the active region and charge transport from the active region to the integration gate (IG). The separation-enhancing means (SL) are for instance a shield layer designed such that for a given lateral electric potential (?(x)), the incident light (In) does not impinge on the section from which the charge carriers would not be transported to the integration gate (IG).

Abstract: A vehicle has a cab for a driver. An electronically controlled vehicle device, in particular a current collector, can be operated by the driver. An operating device has an input to receive from the driver an operating command and an output for outputting a status indication to the driver. A control device outside the cab produces a control signal for the vehicle device from the operating command and a status indication from a status signal of the vehicle device. The control device is connected to the vehicle device and the operating device by way of a network for data transmission. The operating device is portable and can be fixed in a retaining device, which has a network interface and is arranged in the cab, for operation during travel. It can be detached from the retaining device in order to be carried by the driver.

Abstract: A system for monitoring pressure change within at least one compartment of an aircraft is provided. The system includes a primary pressure sensor for providing a signal corresponding to a pressure within a primary compartment of the aircraft, a primary monitoring channel coupled to the primary pressure sensor, and an output driver coupled to the primary monitoring channel. The primary monitoring channel includes a band pass filter for receiving and filtering the primary pressure signal, a pressure change circuit for determining a change in the filtered pressure signal and for providing a pressure change output signal corresponding to the change in pressure, and a threshold logic circuit for determining whether the pressure change output signal meets a predetermined threshold and for providing a threshold output signal indicating that a decompression event has occurred if the pressure change output signal meets the predetermined threshold.

Abstract: A demodulation image sensor, such as used in time of flight (TOF) cameras, extracts all storage- and post-processing-related steps from the pixels to another array of storage and processing elements (proxels) on the chip. The pixel array has the task of photo-detection, first processing and intermediate storage to create subframes, while the array of storage and processing elements provides accumulation into frames. Particularly, sampled values of several subframes are summed in a compressed manner. Possible compression is to use exponential function.

Abstract: A high-speed, high-sensitivity demodulation sensor usable for e.g. time-of-flight application uses a back side illuminated (BSI) image sensor chip, in which the photo-generated charges are first transferred to a demodulation area, from which the charges are then sampled and stored on at least one specific storage node. The storage node is electrically isolated from the sensitive area. Such a pixel might find its use specifically in 3D time-of-flight imaging given its improvements in sensitivity because the presented invention allows to design pixel with up to 100% fill factor and enables charge detection even if the charge generation by the photon occurs deep in the silicon substrate.

Abstract: The presented readout structure provides charge transport based readout of a photosensitive device with a minimum number of transport gates. The structure uses the given charge storage buckets of the photosensitive device, separated by a minimum sized barrier-gate, to transport the charge out of the pixel field. This new readout schema allows for a fast readout speed based on a 2 phase transport chain and increases the pixel's optical fill factor by significantly reducing the transport gate size compared to state-of-the-art pixels using a 3 or 4 phase CCD readout chain. This readout structure can be exploited for standard photo-detecting elements such as e.g. pinned photo-diodes or any enhanced pixel structure that has additional intelligence incorporated as well. Typical applications are 2D- or 3D-imaging.

Abstract: A system and corresponding method for automated sprinkle management for managing a sprinkler system in a plurality of repetitive periods is provided. For a present repetitive period where sprinkling is not to be performed, an amount of one or more meteorological-related metrics is retrieved for a previous repetitive period, and the amount is logged. For a present repetitive period where sprinkling is to be performed, the method, and implementing system, includes retrieving for an elongated period, including a multiple of the repetitive periods, one or more of these amounts and calculating a sum of these amounts for the elongated period. It also includes determining a sprinkling interval based at least in part on the sum, the sprinkling interval being a period of time that the sprinkler system is operable, and causing the sprinkler system to operate for the sprinkling interval.