Abstract: A power supply and control device for a plurality of electric actuators, the device comprising a control circuit and a power circuit, the power circuit having an inverter module connected to a switch module provided with connection means for connection to the actuators, the control circuit being connected to the switch module to operate it so as to connect the actuators sequentially to the inverter module, wherein the control circuit is arranged to control the inverter module and the switch module sequentially, and wherein the control circuit includes a monitoring module arranged to detect a malfunction of the device. An actuator assembly comprising a plurality of actuators and such a power supply and control device, and an aircraft including a plurality of actuators and such a power supply and control device of the above-specified type.

Abstract: The sighting system has a sight including an aiming mirror (16) which is steered about a circular axis that is fixed relative to a support secured to a carrier, and about an elevation axis (18) under the control of motors (15, 22) to bring the direction of light which is received along a reference sighting line in a geographical frame of reference (x, y, z) to the direction of the circular axis, and measurement device for measuring the real angles imparted to the aiming mirror (16) about circular and lateral axes by the motors. A gyro unit continuously delivers angles for converting the reference frame of reference (x, y, z) to a frame of reference tied to the support (x1, y1, z1). A computer and servo-control unit controls the motors (15, 22) on the basis of information received from the gyro unit (60) and from the measurement device.

Abstract: Some signal coding techniques involve quantizing the signal samples using a signal derived parameter to set the quantizer step. This parameter is then used in the decoding process to synthesize the original signal back to its analog form. Any error affecting the integrity of said parameter, between coding and decoding, would affect the synthesized signal. The method proposed here for protecting data integrity involves, at the encoding site, forcing the parameter to a fixed parity. Then, before synthesizing operations are performed, any parameter failing a parity control test is discarded and replaced with a parameter derived from available valid parameter(s).

Abstract: A pitch detector to adjust long term prediction in a pulse excitation speech coder. A residual signal r(n) is first derived from the speech signal s(n) by short term filtering. Then, r(n) is processed to calculate a prediction error signal e(n) which is subsequently pulse excitation encoded. The processing of e(n) entails prediction of a residual by measuring a pitch related factor M, employing two steps. First calculating a coarse M value through peak clipping and sign transition detection, and then adjusting the M value by autocorrelation--calculations about the roughly spaced peaks.