Abstract: A vehicle having park assist includes a plurality of powered closure doors, each door having an actuator for moving the door between closed and open positions, a plurality of sensors located on the vehicle for sensing objects relative to the vehicle and generating sensed signals indicative of the sensed objects, and a transceiver for communicating with a parked vehicle. The vehicle also includes a controller processing the sensed signals, determining a distance and location of the sensed objects relative to the doors, and determining a parking location for the vehicle in a garage where the closure doors are free from contact with an object in the garage when in an open position and are free of contact with powered closure doors on the parked vehicle. An output is provided to assist a driver of the vehicle to park the vehicle in the garage in the determined parking location.

Abstract: A method of plating a substrate includes etching at least a portion of a surface of the substrate to form voids within the surface. The substrate includes a composite material with a network of electrically conductive nanostructures dispersed therein. Electrodes are attached to the substrate, it is placed in a bath of a first electrically conductive metal, and a voltage is applied to the substrate through the electrodes to deposit a first electrically conductive metal layer onto the surface of the substrate, and a second electrically conductive metal layer is electroplated thereon.

Abstract: A vehicle includes a powered door having an actuator to move the door between open and closed positions, a transceiver configured to communicate with one or more mobile devices, and an imaging device oriented to capture images in a region proximate to the powered door. A controller processes the captured images and controls the actuator to move the door to the open position when a mobile device is detected proximate the vehicle and a user is detected in the captured images located in a door detection zone. The controller moves the door to the open position when a face of a user is recognized as an authorized user located in the door detection zone. The controller moves the door to the open position when a gait of the user is detected and identifies the gait are indicative of an authorized user located in the door detection zone.

Abstract: This invention relates to well-head structures, and particularly to so-called christmas trees, i.e. the complex of valves and pipes installed at a well-head to control the flow of high pressure oil or gas. The invention more particularly, but not exclusively relates to such structures for use in sub-sea structures. In order to accommodate all the required valves and pipes, known trees are normally undesirably high--i.e. of the order of 18 feet or so. In order that trawler nets do not snag on such trees, expensive protection structures or well reinforcing may be required to be installed around each tree. However, the present invention provides a christmas tree including a valve assembly comprising one or more valves installed at a well-head to control the flow of produce thereat, at least one of the one or more valves being retained within an outlet of the well-head.

Abstract: A short circuit current limiting reactor is disclosed having a series pass inductor wound on a core. A saturation control circuit is employed to control the magnetic saturation of the core. Under normal operating conditions, the core is in magnetic saturation thus making the reactance of the inductor negligible and allowing an AC current to flow freely through the inductor. Upon the occurrence of a short circuit fault, the saturation control circuit brings the core out of its magnetically saturated state thereby causing the reactance of the inductor to rise and limiting the amount of current flowing through the inductor.

Abstract: An electric power system having power supplies connected in parallel to a common bus includes a voltage feedback and current feedback loop for each supply. A voltage feedback signal and a current feedback signal are combined with a reference signal to produce an error signal. The output voltage of each supply is controlled in response to its corresponding error signal, to achieve current sharing and redundancy without interconnections among the control circuits of the various supplies.

Abstract: A DC link variable speed constant frequency power system is provided with a voltage boost circuit connected to receive voltage from a pair of DC link conductors and to supply voltage to an auxiliary supply bus. During normal system operation, the voltage boost circuit transfers the DC link voltage to the auxiliary supply bus. When a system fault occurs, such that the DC link voltage is reduced, the voltage boost circuit is activated to boost the reduced DC link voltage level and supply that boosted voltage level to the auxiliary supply bus.