Patents by Inventor William R. Miner

William R. Miner 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: 6841990
    Abstract: A mechanical apparatus for testing a plethora of RF devices using test resources that are quickly and easily replaced is disclosed. The mechanical apparatus is located within an RF enclosure, and contains space for one or more test resources, or customizations, to be installed and applied to a device under test (DUT). The mechanical apparatus is coupled to the RF enclosure through a nest plate coupling to a drawer plate. This coupling is made into a tight seal through the use of o-ring elements that enables pneumatic pressure to be made available within the mechanical apparatus. The mechanical apparatus has a stationary base assembly, a lower nest assembly and an upper nest assembly. The DUT may be placed between the upper nest assembly and lower nest assembly, where the upper nest assembly and lower nest assembly may be coupled to test resources that may be applied to the DUT.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 11, 2005
    Assignee: Agilent Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Helmuth O. Kroog, Timothy A. Lock, William R. Miner, Grant E. Cashen, Mark Stauder
  • Patent number: 6621001
    Abstract: A system and method for radio frequency (RF) sealing a door of an RF enclosure is disclosed. The door employs a two-axis gimbal system to provide two degrees of freedom as the drawer door makes contact with the RF enclosure. The two-axis gimbal system allows the forces applied to the sealing gasket to be uniform along the length of the seal. This enables uniform seal compression, and therefore, uniform RF isolation. The door is held rigid while the door gasket is not affecting a seal against the frame of the RF enclosure. As the door becomes engaged with the frame, multiple contact points of the drawer door are deactivated thereby allowing the drawer door to pivot near the seal centroid on a two-axis gimbal system. The two-axis gimbal system allows the RF seal to be applied uniformly across the length of the seal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2001
    Date of Patent: September 16, 2003
    Assignee: Agilent Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Helmuth O. Kroog, Timothy A. Lock, William R. Miner, Grant E. Cashen
  • Publication number: 20030079892
    Abstract: A system and method for radio frequency (RF) sealing a door of an RF enclosure is disclosed. The door employs a two-axis gimbal system to provide two degrees of freedom as the drawer door makes contact with the RF enclosure. The two-axis gimbal system allows the forces applied to the sealing gasket to be uniform along the length of the seal. This enables uniform seal compression, and therefore, uniform RF isolation. The door is held rigid while the door gasket is not affecting a seal against the frame of the RF enclosure. As the door becomes engaged with the frame, multiple contact points of the drawer door are deactivated thereby allowing the drawer door to pivot near the seal centroid on a two-axis gimbal system. The two-axis gimbal system allows the RF seal to be applied uniformly across the length of the seal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 31, 2001
    Publication date: May 1, 2003
    Inventors: Helmuth O. Kroog, Timothy A. Lock, William R. Miner, Grant E. Cashen
  • Publication number: 20030080726
    Abstract: A mechanical apparatus for testing a plethora of RF devices using test resources that are quickly and easily replaced is disclosed. The mechanical apparatus is located within an RF enclosure, and contains space for one or more test resources, or customizations, to be installed and applied to a device under test (DUT). The mechanical apparatus is coupled to the RF enclosure through a nest plate coupling to a drawer plate. This coupling is made into a tight seal through the use of o-ring elements that enables pneumatic pressure to be made available within the mechanical apparatus. The mechanical apparatus has a stationary base assembly, a lower nest assembly and an upper nest assembly. The DUT may be placed between the upper nest assembly and lower nest assembly, where the upper nest assembly and lower nest assembly may be coupled to test resources that may be applied to the DUT.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 31, 2001
    Publication date: May 1, 2003
    Inventors: Helmuth O. Kroog, Timothy A. Lock, William R. Miner, Grant E. Cashen, Mark Stauder
  • Patent number: 6513260
    Abstract: A customizable nest plate for securely positioning a device to be nested. An alignment device may be used to position nest pins within one version of the nest plate. In another version, several tugboat stop blocks may be adjusted and secured against a nest plate having many threaded apertures in order to secure the device to be nested. In addition, adjustable ramps may be used to adjust the height of a device to be nested above the surface of the nest plate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2001
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2003
    Assignee: Agilent Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Russell Steven Krajec, John L Bidwell, William R Miner
  • Publication number: 20020053145
    Abstract: A customizable nest plate for securely positioning a device to be nested. An alignment device may be used to position nest pins within one version of the nest plate. In another version, several tugboat stop blocks may be adjusted and secured against a nest plate having many threaded apertures in order to secure the device to be nested. In addition, adjustable ramps may be used to adjust the height of a device to be nested above the surface of the nest plate.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 21, 2001
    Publication date: May 9, 2002
    Inventors: Russell Steven Krajec, John L. Bidwell, William R. Miner
  • Patent number: 6336276
    Abstract: A customizable nest plate for securely positioning a device to be nested. An alignment device may be used to position nest pins within one version of the nest plate. In another version, several tugboat stop blocks may be adjusted and secured against a nest plate having many threaded apertures in order to secure the device to be nested. In addition, adjustable ramps may be used to adjust the height of a device to be nested above the surface of the nest plate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2000
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2002
    Assignee: Agilent Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Russell Steven Krajec, John L Bidwell, William R Miner
  • Patent number: 4939454
    Abstract: The connector system for a printed circuit board test facility provides an efficient and unitary electrical and mechanical interconnection between the scanner pins of the bed of nails and the device scanner elecronics printed circuit cards that comprise the printed circuit board test facility. The connector system consists of a plurality of connector blocks oriented in a side by side arrangement to implement the xy coordinate axis matrix of scanner pins of the bed of nails. Each connector block consists of a custom molded plastic block that is equipped with replaceable spring loaded scanner pins. The connector block offers very high stiffness to minimize deflection under load of the spring loaded pins, very accurate dimensional stability, high impedance to electrical signals, a thermal expansion characteristic similar to the probe plate to which it is attached and very accurate positioning. Each scanner pin is connected t a lead wire that is bent in the shape of a question mark.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 1989
    Date of Patent: July 3, 1990
    Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Company
    Inventor: William R. Miner
  • Patent number: 4400132
    Abstract: A skidding grapple having a self-propelled vehicle equipped with a saddle carrying a boom and grapple horizontally and vertically swingable thereon, a fairlead assembly removably mounted atop the saddle and a winch having a line reeled thereon positioned forward of the saddle and the line passing through the fairlead assembly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 1981
    Date of Patent: August 23, 1983
    Assignee: Esco Corporation
    Inventors: Richard R. Deline, William R. Miner