Patents by Inventor Patrick T. Fung

Patrick T. Fung 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: 5116180
    Abstract: In a human-in-the-loop robotic control loop, the constrained forces and moments at the gripper (also called hand or end effector) of the manipulator are measured by a force-mement sensor. The resulting force and moment signals are scaled and fed as input voltages to motors in a hand controller to provide torques which oppose deflection of the hand controller. Thus, the operator feels the opposing torques which are proportional to the magnitude of the constrained forces and moments. The force feedback loop may be opened to selectively provide a passive control loop. In either the active or passive mode, the hand controller position signals may be selectively mapped to either gripper position signals or gripper velocity signals in order to control movement of the gripper in the desired manner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 3, 1990
    Date of Patent: May 26, 1992
    Assignee: Spar Aerospace Limited
    Inventors: Patrick T. Fung, Graham Norgate, Timothy A. Dilts, Andrew S. Jones, Rangaswamy Ravindran