Military Applications (ipc) Patents (Class 342/357.56)
  • Patent number: 11775916
    Abstract: Described is a method of delivery for cargo or goods from an aerial vehicle (mothership) to a designated ground delivery location via the use of a direct air shipping package. For example, an aerial vehicle may be an airplane or helicopter that remains at altitude with a packaged stowed for deployment. As the mothership travels in the vicinity of the designated location the package flight control computer (flight controller) calculates a preferred travel trajectory based upon the aerodynamic properties of the package and location relative to the designated delivery location such as a small delivery pad located on a patio of a home. When the mothership transits through a calculated release point the package disengages the mothership. As the package descends it may increase accuracy relative to the designated delivery location by altering aerodynamic properties to maintain the preferred travel trajectory and decreasing landing zone size requirements and increasing precision of delivery.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2023
    Assignee: AeroVironment, Inc.
    Inventors: Joel Nathan Ifill, Joseph R. Caravella, Jr.
  • Patent number: 11686859
    Abstract: Systems, devices, and methods for a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aerial vehicle having a first GPS antenna and a second GPS antenna, where the second GPS antenna is disposed distal from the first GPS antenna; and an aerial vehicle flight controller, where the flight controller is configured to: utilize a GPS antenna signal via the GPS antenna switch from the first GPS antenna or the second GPS antenna; receive a pitch level of the aerial vehicle from the one or more aerial vehicle sensors in vertical flight or horizontal flight; determine if the received pitch level is at a set rotation from vertical or horizontal; and utilize the GPS signal not being utilized via the GPS antenna switch if the determined pitch level is at or above the set rotation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 27, 2023
    Assignee: AEROVIRONMENT, INC.
    Inventor: William Arden Lott
  • Patent number: 8970382
    Abstract: A passive security system and personal equipment on vessels is for man over board situations. The personal equipment, prepared for being worn by a crewmember of the vessel, includes a first module (2) integrated into a belt (4); a life jacket (5) folded inside of the first module (2) and attached thereto by at least one strap (6); a second module (8) placed in the interior of the first module (2), connected to the life jacket (5) and configured to inflate the life jacket (5) when it detects a man over board situation. The first module (2) has on its rear part one flap (3) configured to be opened by the life jacket (5) inflating action, allowing the passage thereof to the exterior of the first module (2). It is used as a passive security element for “man over board” situations, to allow an immediate detection of the situation and a fast rescue.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2015
    Assignee: Scio Soft, S.L.
    Inventors: Pablo Bermudez Pestonit, Jaime Casals Diaz, Fernando López Peña, Richard J. Duro Fernández, Alejandro Paz López, Gervasio Varela Fernández
  • Patent number: 8942923
    Abstract: Method of determining navigation parameters for a carrier by a hybridization device comprising a Kalman filter (3) formulating a hybrid navigation solution on the basis of inertial measurements calculated by a virtual platform (2) and of raw measurements of signals emitted by a constellation of satellites delivered by a satellite positioning system (GNSS), characterized in that it comprises, the steps of: —determination, for each satellite, of at least one likelihood ratio (Ir, Ir?) between a hypothesis regarding a fault of a given nature of the satellite and a hypothesis regarding an absence of fault of the satellite, —declaration, of a fault of a given nature on a satellite as a function of the likelihood ratio (Ir, Ir?) associated with this fault and of a threshold value, —estimation of the impact of the declared fault on the hybrid navigation solution, and ?correction of the hybrid navigation solution as a function of the estimation of the impact of the declared fault.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2015
    Assignee: Sagem Defense Securite
    Inventors: Didier Riedinger, Houcine Chafouk
  • Patent number: 8879410
    Abstract: Some embodiments of the invention relate to WRAs that implement removable memory units (RMUs). The ability to load operational, maintenance, and mission data through RMUs is critical for avionics platform safety and logistics. However, due to strong hardware dependence, universality, or rather platform-invariance is not currently available for aircraft data acquisition (including the real-time recording of new performance, operational (flight) and environmental data) or mission data loading via prior art WRAs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 7, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 4, 2014
    Assignee: Physical Optics Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Kostrzewski, Sookwang Ro, Kang Lee, Thomas Forrester, Michael Alan Thompson, Tomasz Jannson
  • Publication number: 20140320342
    Abstract: A body armor enhancement according to the present invention comprises global positioning system (GPS) unit, a pressure switch, and a wire mesh/non-conductive covering trauma activated switch being on top of or beneath a soldier's Kevlar and ballistic plates. The soldier can depress the pressure switch to activate the GPS tracking unit thus displaying his location to command and notifying them of his duress and exact location. The GPS unit can also be activated by the impact of firearm fired projectiles such as bullets so that even after the soldier gets injured and/or loses ability to depress the pressure switch; their location can be tracked via GPS unit. In addition to protection offered by the Kevlar covering and ballistic plates, the body armor enhancement helps to locate injured soldiers or soldiers who got kidnapped or are missing in action.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 30, 2013
    Publication date: October 30, 2014
    Inventors: William Glenn Parker, William Clayton Parker
  • Patent number: 8868340
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method for analyzing travel patterns in transit systems is provided. The method includes identifying an existing transit point of a transit system and receiving location information including geo-location paths of a plurality of mobile devices. Each of the geo-location paths includes the identified transit point. The method also includes determining a proposed transit point for the transit system based on the geo-location paths of the received location information. Systems and machine-readable media are also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 17, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 21, 2014
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Douglas Antony Rinckes, Csaba Zoltán Garay
  • Patent number: 8508404
    Abstract: The present invention is directed to fuze system for munition that produces a height-of-burst (HOB) signal using two Global Positioning System (GPS) signals, the first signal being from a particular GPS satellite (the direct GPS signal) and the second signal being the GPS signal from the same GPS satellite after the signal has been reflected from the surface adjacent to the target. In one embodiment, the HOB signal is generated when there is a substantial correlation between the reflected GPS signal and direct GPS delayed by an amount of time that is indicative of the desired HOB.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 2011
    Date of Patent: August 13, 2013
    Assignee: FIRST RF Corporation
    Inventor: Benjamin R. Wilmhoff
  • Patent number: 8391772
    Abstract: Precision surgical jamming of a target located at a distance uses GPS to coherently focus the jamming energy transmitted from a plurality of nodes. One of the nodes is designated as a master node and the remaining nodes are designated as auxiliary nodes. Each node tracks the carrier phases of satellite signals transmitted by a plurality of GPS satellites relative to a carrier phase of a reference oscillator in the respective node. The master node provides the tracked phase measurements along with its position information to all of the auxiliary nodes. The auxiliary nodes determine the phase offset of its reference oscillator relative to the reference oscillator of the master node based on the transmitted data. The transmit phase of a jammer transmitter in each of the nodes is then aligned to the phase of the reference oscillator to transmit a coherent focused beam to a distant target.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 10, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2013
    Assignee: Raytheon Company
    Inventors: Paul H. Grobert, William K. Wallace
  • Patent number: 8264409
    Abstract: An electromagnetic radiation source locating system including an electromagnetic radiation sensor including an antenna configured to detect a radiant energy transmission. A position detector is in communication with the controller and is configured to detect the position of the antenna relative to a reference coordinate system, while an orientation sensor is in communication with the controller and is configured to detect the orientation of the antenna and provide an orientation signal to the controller. A range sensor is configured to detect the distance to an aligned object in the path of a directional vector and provide a distance signal indicative thereof to the controller. An aerial vehicle may be in communication with the controller and configured to drop a marker for guiding navigators to the source of the radiant energy transmission.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 11, 2012
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventor: Gerald F. Miller
  • Patent number: 8106811
    Abstract: A system and method for determining the roll rate and roll angle of a spinning platform in a jamming environment, by suppressing the interference signals from the received GPS signals and using the measured phase and amplitude differences between the GPS satellite signals received on two or more antennas. The measured signal differences and the navigation solution from a GPS receiver are processed in a roll filter to obtain the desired information. Data from non-GPS measurement sources is optionally provided to update the navigation solution. Although of wide applicability, the invention is uniquely suited to the measurement of roll rates and roll angles of fast spinning platforms with small baselines in the presence of jamming, and where the antennas are separated from each other by distances that are a fraction of the GPS signal wavelength.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 15, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2012
    Assignee: Mayflower Communications Company, Inc.
    Inventors: Wallace E. Vander Velde, John H. Cafarella, Huan-Wan Tseng, George Dimos, Triveni N. Upadhyay, Jianhui Luo
  • Patent number: 7978132
    Abstract: A global positioning system (GPS) signal data converter device includes a plurality of output ports configured to connect with and transmit GPS information to devices connected with the output ports, and a processor configured to receive GPS information in a first format, convert the GPS information from the first format into a second format, and to transmit the GPS information to at least two output ports in the first and second formats.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2011
    Assignee: ITT Manufacturing Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Kevin Louis Jasper, Michael Banks, Mark Wulffert
  • Patent number: 7978130
    Abstract: A practical method for adding new high-performance, tightly integrated Nav-Com capability to any Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) user equipment requires no hardware modifications to the existing user equipment. In one example, the iGPS concept is applied to a Defense Advanced GPS Receiver (DAGR) and combines Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites, such as Iridium, with GPS or other GNSS systems to significantly improve the accuracy, integrity, and availability of Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) and to enable new communication enhancements made available by the synthesis of precisely coupled navigation and communication modes. To achieve time synchronization stability between the existing DAGR and a plug-in iGPS enhancement module, a special-purpose wideband reference signal is generated by the iGPS module and coupled to the DAGR via the existing antenna port.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2011
    Assignee: Coherent Navigation, Inc.
    Inventors: Clark E. Cohen, Todd E. Humphreys, Brent M. Ledvina, William J. Bencze, Mark L. Psiaki, Bryan T. Galusha
  • Publication number: 20100278013
    Abstract: Systems and methods of providing precision locations for sensors which make up an array of sensors in a gunshot detection system. Consistent with some exemplary implementations, sensors may employ a commercial GPS which reports a sensor position or a group of pseudoranges to GPS satellites. A server may collect differential information from a differential node and, in one exemplary implementation, may calculate a precision position for each sensor by adjusting the reported position or pseudoranges with the differential information. In other exemplary implementations, differential information may be sent from the host to individual sensors which calculate their own precision positions. Exemplary differential information may include latitude and longitude corrections, pseudorange corrections, ionospheric delay, GPS satellite clock drift, or other corrective term which will improve the accuracy of a sensor position.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 11, 2010
    Publication date: November 4, 2010
    Applicant: Shotspotter, Inc.
    Inventors: Fred Holmes, Ken Fisher, Kevin Baxter