Patents by Inventor Vincent Chopard

Vincent Chopard 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: 20230393283
    Abstract: A position of an aircraft is computed, associated with the radius of a sphere centered around the estimated position of the aircraft and within which the actual position of the aircraft is located with a probability equal to or greater than a predefined threshold. For this purpose, the computation is based on distances from radio transmitters each having a fixed position in a geographical reference frame. The positions of the radio transmitters are converted into a terrestrial reference system, before solving a system of equations linking, in the terrestrial reference system, the position of the aircraft and the positions of the radio transmitters. After solving the system of equations, the position of the aircraft is converted from the terrestrial reference system into the geographical reference frame.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 5, 2021
    Publication date: December 7, 2023
    Inventors: Jean-Pierre ARETHENS, Warody LOMBARDI, Vincent CHOPARD
  • Patent number: 9720097
    Abstract: The invention relates to a device for receiving satellite radio-navigation signals comprising a plurality of receiving antennas forming an antenna array. The invention consists in using a plurality of antennas disposed around the circumference of a carrier and in demodulating the signals received by each antenna separately. The diversity of the demodulation chains is utilized to compensate the signal loss on one of the chains when the corresponding antenna experiences a signal loss due to the masking of the satellite by the carrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 19, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 1, 2017
    Assignee: Thales
    Inventors: Nicolas Martin, Vincent Chopard, David Depraz
  • Patent number: 9500749
    Abstract: The invention relates to a device for receiving satellite radio-navigation signals comprising a plurality of receiving antennas forming an antenna array. The invention consists in using a plurality of antennas disposed around the circumference of a carrier, in demodulating the signals received by each antenna separately and then in combining the various demodulated signals, thereby amounting to effecting a beam forming in an equivalent antenna pattern. The invention then requires only a single synchronization slaving for the set of demodulation pathways.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 19, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2016
    Assignee: Thales
    Inventors: Nicolas Martin, Vincent Chopard, David Depraz
  • Patent number: 9391366
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for calibrating an antenna of a receiver of signals (s1, . . . , sN) originating from a plurality of sources, said receiver comprising a plurality of sensors (c1, . . . , cM), characterized in that it comprises the following steps: measurement of a phase shift (dm,n measure) for each of the sensors (c1, . . . , cM) on each of the signals (s1, . . . , sN), determination of at least one attitude value of the antenna, said attitude being defined by a set of coordinates, calculation, for each of the sensors on each of the signals, of a theoretical phase shift (dm,n theoretical) as a function of the attitude of the antenna, from the directions of arrival of the signals, calculation of a bias (?1 sensor m) for each of the sensors from the measured phase shifts (dm,n measure) and from the theoretical phase shifts (dm,n theoretical) of the sensor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2016
    Assignee: Thales
    Inventors: Nicolas Martin, Jean-Michel Perre, Vincent Chopard
  • Publication number: 20140292575
    Abstract: Method for formation of a signals array from a receiver (20) of signals from a satellite navigation system in order to improve the resistance to scrambling or interference, the receiver (20) being equipped with an antenna (21) having several controlled reception pattern sensors, comprising a step consisting in determining the attitude of the antenna in a TGL reference frame centred on the receiver, by iterative determination of the attitude angles of the antenna yielding the maximum of the sum of the energies of the weighted sums of the signals received by the sensors at the output of the correlators of the processing channel respectively associated with the satellites, the weighting coefficients of the weighted sums being calculated from the attitude angles considered at each iteration and from the known positions of the satellites in the TGL reference frame.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 26, 2014
    Publication date: October 2, 2014
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventors: Nicolas Martin, Jean-Michel Perre, Vincent Chopard
  • Publication number: 20140292576
    Abstract: Method for detecting signals intended as a decoy for a receiver of signals from a satellite navigation system, the receiver being equipped with an antenna using controlled reception pattern sensors, comprising the following steps consisting in, for each satellite: calculating (1) the position of the satellite in a first TGL reference frame centred on the receiver based on the position of the receiver and on the position of the satellite; determining (2) the attitude of the antenna in the first reference frame; calculating (3) first elevation and azimuthal angles of the satellite in a second reference frame linked to the antenna, starting from the position of the satellite in the first reference frame and from the attitude of the antenna in the first reference frame; determining (4) second elevation and azimuthal angles of the satellite in the second reference frame, by iterative search for a maximum of a weighted complex sum of the demodulated signals received by the antenna; calculating (5) the value of a
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 26, 2014
    Publication date: October 2, 2014
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventors: Nicolas Martin, Jean-Michel Perre, Vincent Chopard
  • Patent number: 8818435
    Abstract: System for receiving satellite signals jammed by at least one source of interference and by a thermal noise comprising means for receiving the said satellite signals, means for filtering the said satellite signals, in order to remove the disruption from the said sources of interference. The system also comprises first means for determining a first covariance matrix of the satellite signals, adding means for adding respectively a first coefficient to at least one element of the diagonal of the said first covariance matrix in order to obtain a second covariance matrix, second means for determining, on the basis of the said second covariance matrix, second coefficients used by the said filtering means. The system also comprises means for detecting a first power of the said thermal noise, third means for dynamic determination of the value of the said first coefficients, on the basis of the first power.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 26, 2014
    Assignee: Thales
    Inventors: Vincent Chopard, Franck Letestu, Bruno Montagne
  • Publication number: 20130249735
    Abstract: The invention relates to a device for receiving satellite radio-navigation signals comprising a plurality of receiving antennas forming an antenna array. The invention consists in using a plurality of antennas disposed around the circumference of a carrier, in demodulating the signals received by each antenna separately and then in combining the various demodulated signals, thereby amounting to effecting a beam forming in an equivalent antenna pattern. The invention then requires only a single synchronization slaving for the set of demodulation pathways.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 19, 2013
    Publication date: September 26, 2013
    Applicant: Thales
    Inventors: Nicolas Martin, Vincent Chopard, David Depraz
  • Publication number: 20130044027
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for calibrating an antenna of a receiver of signals (s1, . . . , sN) originating from a plurality of sources, said receiver comprising a plurality of sensors (c1, . . . , cM), characterized in that it comprises the following steps: measurement of a phase shift (dm,n measure) for each of the sensors (c1, . . . , cM) on each of the signals (s1, . . . , sN), determination of at least one attitude value of the antenna, said attitude being defined by a set of coordinates, calculation, for each of the sensors on each of the signals, of a theoretical phase shift (dm,n theoretical) as a function of the attitude of the antenna, from the directions of arrival of the signals, calculation of a bias (?1 sensor m) for each of the sensors from the measured phase shifts (dm,n measure) and from the theoretical phase shifts (dm,n theoretical) of the sensor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 15, 2012
    Publication date: February 21, 2013
    Applicant: Thales
    Inventors: Nicolas Martin, Jean-Michel Perre, Vincent Chopard
  • Patent number: 8378890
    Abstract: A satellite-based positioning receiver includes processing channels, each processing channel being associated with a respective satellite from among N satellites, and an extended Kalman filter for performing a vector tracking for the set of satellites using signals received from the satellites. The extended Kalman filter performs a resetting on the basis of the phase error and code error received directly from the phase and code discriminators, of each channel, and the receiver is configured for calculating the code-wise and carrier-wise control signals for the code phase and carrier phase numerically-controlled oscillators, on the basis of data provided by the extended Kalman filter, for each channel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 19, 2013
    Assignee: Thales
    Inventors: Vincent Chopard, Nicolas Martin
  • Publication number: 20110181463
    Abstract: A satellite-based positioning receiver includes processing channels, each processing channel being associated with a respective satellite from among N satellites, and an extended Kalman filter for performing a vector tracking for the set of satellites using signals received from the satellites. The extended Kalman filter performs a resetting on the basis of the phase error and code error received directly from the phase and code discriminators, of each channel, and the receiver includes first means for calculating the code-wise and carrier-wise control signals for the said code phase and carrier phase numerically-controlled oscillators, on the basis of data provided by the said extended Kalman filter, for each channel.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 16, 2010
    Publication date: July 28, 2011
    Applicant: THALES
    Inventors: Vincent CHOPARD, Nicolas MARTIN