Patents by Inventor William R. Norris

William R. Norris 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).

  • Vehicle center of gravity active suspension control system
    Patent number: 8825294
    Abstract: A method of controlling a vehicle suspension system including the steps of detecting, computing and altering the center of gravity of the vehicle. The detecting step includes the detecting of a center of gravity of the vehicle thereby defining a detected center of gravity. The computing step includes computing what alteration of a plurality of actuators is needed to substantially reduce a value of a difference between the detected center of gravity and a preferred center of gravity using a fuzzy relations control strategy. The computing step is carried out in a controller. The altering step includes altering the center of gravity of the vehicle by way of the controller actuating at least one of the actuators connected to suspension elements of the vehicle dependent upon the alteration arrived at in the computing step.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 28, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 2, 2014
    Assignee: Deere & Company
    Inventors: William R. Norris, Bernard E. Romig
  • Perception model for trajectory following autonomous and human augmented steering control
    Patent number: 8510034
    Abstract: A steering control method including the steps of obtaining a heading error, obtaining a velocity value, obtaining a distance error, applying the heading error and defuzzifying an output from a steering rule base. The velocity value and the distance error are applied along with the heading error to fuzzy logic membership functions to produce an output that is applied to a steering rule base. An output from the steering rule base is defuzzified to produce a steering signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 28, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 13, 2013
    Assignee: Deere & Company
    Inventors: William R. Norris, Bernard E. Romig, John F. Reid
  • ACTIVE SUSPENSION SYSTEM
    Publication number: 20130030650
    Abstract: A method of controlling a vehicle suspension system including the steps of detecting, computing and altering the center of gravity of the vehicle. The detecting step includes the detecting of a center of gravity of the vehicle thereby defining a detected center of gravity. The computing step includes computing what alteration of a plurality of actuators is needed to substantially reduce a value of a difference between the detected center of gravity and a preferred center of gravity using a fuzzy relations control strategy. The computing step is carried out in a controller. The altering step includes altering the center of gravity of the vehicle by way of the controller actuating at least one of the actuators connected to suspension elements of the vehicle dependent upon the alteration arrived at in the computing step.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 28, 2011
    Publication date: January 31, 2013
    Inventors: William R. Norris, Bernard E. Romig