A tailgate barbeque grill for use in the bed of a pickup truck. The grill slides along rails and is stored in the front portion thereof for transport and is positioned in the rear portion and lowered for use.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to barbeque grills and, more specifically to a tailgate grill installed within the bed of a pickup truck. The tailgate grill is positioned in the front of the truck bed for transport and storage and slides along rails to the rear of the truck bed where a cantilevered shelf supported by rail articulated sections lowers the tailgate grill to an appropriate level for use.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are other Grill device designed for portability. Typical of these is U.S. Pat. No. 2,867,471 issued to Coon on Jan. 6, 1959.
Another patent was issued to Runyan on Sep. 7, 1982 as U.S. Pat. No. 4,347,830. Yet another U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,189 was issued to Belt on May 21, 1985 and still yet another was issued on Jun. 16, 1987 to Curry as U.S. Pat. No. 4,672,944.
Another patent was issued to McNulty on May 6, 1987 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,626,126. Yet another U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,949 was issued to Smith on Jun. 24, 1987. Another was issued to Davis on Mar. 12, 2002 as U.S. Pat. No. 6,354,286 and still yet another was issued on Oct. 8, 2002 to Lance, et al as U.S. Pat. No. 6,460,744.
Another patent was issued to Brennan on Jun. 10, 2003 as U.S. Pat. No. 6,575,155. Yet another U.S. Pat. No. 6,814,383 was issued to Reed, III, et al. on Nov. 9, 2004. Another was issued to Emery, et al. on May 30, 2006 as U.S. Pat. No. 7,052,066 and still yet another was issued on Jan. 26, 2006 to Meyer as U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0016447.
Another patent was issued to Ransford on Apr. 27, 2006 as U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0086353. Yet another International Patent Application No. WO 2004/020909 was issued to Mckoski on Mar. 11, 2004. Another was issued to Wheeler on Jan. 22, 2005 as Canadian Patent No. CA2435734 and still yet another was issued on Oct. 7, 2008 to Flannery as Canadian Patent No. CA2461503.
A camping apparatus adapted for installation in a station wagon, comprising: a frame structure having side walls, each of said side walls including a fixed panel, a removable panel, and separable connecting means for securing said removable panels in place, said panels being complementary, said frame structure also including transverse members defining with said side panels a drawer receiving cavity; an inner drawer unit; an outer drawer unit; separable connecting means for joining said drawer units in coplanar tandem relation for sliding movement into and out of the cavity formed by said frame structure; and a panel hinged to the outer end of the outer drawer unit and arranged to occupy a horizontal position thereby to form a work surface when said drawer units are partially withdrawn from said frame structure.
An outdoor cooking apparatus having a collapsible support which is pivotally mounted in the recess of an automotive spare tire rim. The pan of the cooking apparatus is pivotally attached to the end of the support and the pan and the recess form an enclosure for containing the collapsible cantilevered support when the support is collapsed and pivoted about its pivotal mounting and the pan is pivoted about its pivotal attachment to the support. When the support is collapsed and the pan pivoted, the pan's peripheral edge abuts the spare tire rim flange enclosing the support and any attachments on the support between the pan and the spare tire rim. The spare tire rim could, in one embodiment, be replaced by a portable housing having a carrying handle attached to it.
A cooking apparatus has a pivotal mounting unit attached to the bed of a pickup truck for supporting a cooking unit thereon. The pivotal mounting unit comprises a vertically extending pivotal support member which supports a pair of horizontally extending parallel rods or tubes which extend into and support a cooking unit slidably mounted thereon. The rods or tubes extend nearly the entire length of the cooking unit and support the cooking unit in a variety of positions.
A portable charcoal-heated cooking system for mounting to the coaming of a pick-up truck bed has a steam chamber and a grill chamber, each partly defined by a multiple flat-plate-reflection housing structure that in the grill chamber evens-out radiant heating between the grill edges and central portion. The housing structure also reduces volume necessary for a given cooking requirement. Rain shedding and liquid drainage provisions keep the system ready for use.
The apparatus is multifunctional in that it can be transported, readily and safely, from place to place by means of a vehicle. The transportable barbecue apparatus is detachably attachable to a land vehicle having connection means at the rear thereof, such as a receiver hitch on the rear bumper. The apparatus comprises a barbecue cooker and an support arm, most preferably an articulated support arm, having an inner end portion whereby the arm can be detachably secured at its inner end portion to the connection means so that the apparatus is held above ground level at the rear of the vehicle. Preferably, when the arm is detachably secured in this manner, the arm projects rearwardly from the vehicle in a plane that is substantially perpendicular to the rear bumper. The apparatus, supported by the arm, can be utilized with a stand whereby it becomes a stand alone barbecue cooker.
A portable barbecue grill assembly can be readily attached to the trailer receiver hitch of a motor vehicle and cantilevered therefrom to allow the assembly to be taken freely anywhere. The apparatus includes a principal support arm projecting horizontally outwardly from the rear of the vehicle and an upturned portion, to which an ash saucer is attached, and bolts therethrough anchor a kettle-type barbecue grill having a removable dome-shaped cover. Two food preparation and serving tables are attached to table supporting arms connected to the principal supporting arm below the ash saucer. The table tops, table supporting arms, and ash saucer are readily attachable and detachable by means of snap fastener pins.
A barbeque grill attachment assembly adapted and structured to secure a barbeque grill to the rear of a vehicle so that the grill may be used without detachment from the vehicle is disclosed. The grill assembly permits the barbeque grill to swing in a horizontal arc from its operational position farthest from the rear of the vehicle to a stowed position adjacent the rear of the vehicle.
A storage unit adapted to be slidably coupled to a rear floor portion of a vehicle, such as a pickup truck, may be provided with a mounting structure and a cabinet slidably coupled to the mounting structure. The storage unit may be provided with a plurality of drawers disposed in the cabinet and positioned within the cabinet between a pair of cabinet sidewalls, each of the drawers being movable in a direction parallel to the width of the cabinet. The storage unit may have a cover operatively connected to the cabinet, the cover being movable between an open position in which the drawers may be opened and a closed position in which the cover prevents the drawers from being opened, and a cover latch associated with the cover that allows the cover to be latched in its closed position.
A raisable and lowerable platform that houses a removable charcoal or gas grill and a removable cooler chest, with a storage compartment between the two, a telescoping flagpole mounted to the platform to display team colors, and a fold down table attached on both ends of the platform to provide more cooking area. In the preferred embodiment to date the platform is connected to a wheeled scissors lift system that is used to raise and lower the platform. The apparatus is carried and transported via a rollered receiver hitch assembly that is an integral part of the scissors lift system and that is conventionally mountable on a transport vehicle.
A vehicular tailgating system typically for mounting in or to a rear hatchback portion of a passenger-type vehicle is selectively interconnectable to a power source. In one aspect, the system described herein has a housing defining several temperature-specific chambers therein which are adapted to receive one of several interchangeable modules to provide a wide range of functionality to the system.
An improved vehicle mounted storage unit and workbench, comprising a variably configured cabinet, upper lid with workbench surface, mechanisms for varying the cabinet's working height, slides and wheels for moving the cabinet, mounting brackets to fix the unit to a floor portion of a vehicle. The slides allow the cabinet to slide in and out of the mounting brackets, and contain a quick release feature allowing the unit to be dismounted from them and the vehicle without using tools.
Disclosed is an outdoor cooking apparatus including a grill having a lower portion and an upper portion. The upper portion of the grill has a metal curved top surface, and is hinged to the lower portion of the grill. The lower portion of the grill is releasably mounted to a support frame, which is in turn releasably mounted to the rearward portion of a vehicle. A metal cover, which contains printed indicia thereon, releasably mounts to the upper portion of the grill. The printed indicia cover overlies the top surface of the upper portion of the grill, and is substantially parallel to the top surface of the upper portion of the grill.
A barbecue grill mount (10) for use with a vehicle (12) includes a hitch tube (20) received by a vehicle hitch receiver tube (16), an elongated support tube (32) that extends laterally from the hitch tube (20), a pivot tube (38) mounted by an outer end (46) of the support tube (32), an inverted L-shaped positioning tube (46) supported for rotational positioning by the pivot tube (38), and a grill tray (60) mounted on a horizontal portion distal end (58) of the positioning tube and adjustably positioned about the pivot tube under a control of a rotational positioner (44) of the pivot tube.
The present invention provides an apparatus for connecting a grill (11) or other object to the body of a vehicle (5) and transporting the grill (11) or other object to a remote location. Specifically, the present invention provide for an apparatus to support an object on a vehicle hitch (4). The apparatus is comprised of an elbow support component (30) and a transportation bar (20). The horizontal portion (31) of the elbow support component (30) detachably connects to the vehicle hitch (4), and the vertical portion (32) of the elbow support component (30) detachably connects to the transportation bar (20). The transportation bar (20) is comprised of a vertical sleeve (21) for detachably connecting to the elbow support component (30); a horizontal beam (22) for detachably connecting to the object; and at least one stability wing (23a, 23b) connecting the sleeve and the beam. By providing this extra support, the transportation bar (20) of the present invention provides for increased stability to the object during transportation.
A barbeque stand is taught for attachment to the rear of a vehicle, wherein the barbeque stand comprises: a horizontal support unit including an elongate, generally flat, rectangular, horizontal support member; and means disposed between the horizontal support member and the rear of the vehicle for varying the angular orientation of the horizontal support member relative to the rear of the vehicle.
An apparatus for mounting a grill to a vehicle bumper is provided. The apparatus for mounting a grill to a vehicle bumper includes a support platform, a support arm attached to the support platform at an end thereof, a pivot mount assembly for attaching an end of the support arm to a vehicle bumper, and a retaining mount assembly. A grill is fixedly mounted to the support platform by securing the grill to grill mounting flanges, which are attached to the support platform. The support arm is pivotal about the pivot mount assembly allowing the grill to be rotated about the vehicle for positioning of the grill for use. In addition, the grill support platform can be pivotal about the support arm allowing greater versatility in positioning the grill for use. The retaining mount assembly is attached to the vehicle bumper at a spaced distance from the pivot mount assembly and functions to retain the support arm in a non-use position against or parallel to the vehicle bumper.
While these grills may be suitable for the purposes for which they were designed, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention, as hereinafter described.


A base includes first to third projected portions. A sealing surface of the base is opposed to the housing and equipped with a sealing member. An attachment portion outside the sealing surface is screwed with the housing. A first projected portion projects from the attachment portion toward the housing. The second and third projected portions project relative to the sealing surface toward the housing. A recessed portion between the sealing surface and the first projected portion partially receives and fitted with a spigot protrusion of the housing. The second projected portion is located inside the third projected portion, and the third projected portion is located inside the recessed portion in the radial direction. The second and third projected portions extend along the circumferential direction. The first to third projected portions have projected tip end surfaces located in a same plane and in contact with the housing.

Patent Literature 1 discloses a motor device including a case, a motor, and a control circuit portion. The case includes a cover and a metallic base. The motor is located on one side of the base. The control circuit portion is accommodated in the case and is affixed to a rear side of the base. The rear side is on the opposite side of the one side of the base.
The motor includes a housing, a stator, and a rotor. The housing is in a bottomed tubular shape and is located on a side of a one side of the base to form an accommodation space with the base. The stator is located in the accommodation space and is affixed to the housing. The rotor is rotational inside the stator.
This kind of the motor device is applied to, for example, a valve timing control apparatus configured to control a valve timing of an internal combustion engine by using rotation of the motor.
(Patent Literature 1)
Publication of Japanese unexamined patent application No. 2009-121292
In the above-descried motor device, the motor and the control circuit portion are integrated with each other. Therefore, vibration of the motor may be transmitted to the control circuit portion. In a configuration where the control circuit portion is configured as a circuit board including a printed circuit board mounted with electronic components, reliability of connection in, for example, an electronic component may raise an issue due to vibration.
Furthermore, the above-described motor device employs a waterproofing configuration using a sealing member to water-tightly seal the accommodation space of the motor and the control circuit portion. The sealing member is interposed between, for example, the outer periphery portions of the base and the housing. The present configuration employs, for example, a spigot configuration to position between the housing and the base.
Specifically, multiple spigot protrusions are equipped to the surface of an outer periphery portion of the housing on the side of the base. The spigot protrusions are arranged along the circumferential direction centered on a rotational axis of the motor. In addition, a spigot lateral surface is formed on the outer periphery portion of the base. The multiple spigot protrusions are fitted to the spigot lateral surface. In the present configuration, a machining work may be applied to a cutting surface of the base, which is formed of a metallic material, to form the spigot lateral surface, thereby to enable to secure the accuracy of positioning.
The base has a sealing surface and a through hole. The sealing surface is opposed to the outer periphery portion of the housing and is equipped with a sealing member. The base further includes multiple attachment portions, which are screwed onto an affixation object. The multiple attachment portions are equipped on the outside of the sealing surface in the radial direction relative to the rotational axis. In this configuration, the spigot lateral surface is formed, for example, to be in series with the sealing surface on the outside in the radial direction. It would be conceivable to apply a machining work locally on multiple portions thereby to form multiple groove portions correspondingly to the multiple spigot protrusions each having a spigot lateral surface. Nevertheless, this spigot configuration may become complicated. Consequently, this spigot configuration may require an additional processing work for the machining work.
In addition, this spigot configuration may further require to equip a groove portion having the spigot lateral surface on the outside of the sealing surface in the radial direction in order to secure the spigot lateral surface. In a configuration where the groove portion, which separates the attachment portion from the sealing surface exists, the base is not in contact with the housing at the sealing surface and the groove portion. Consequently, when the base is screwed to the affixation object, the base may be possibly deformed.


Facet fixation implants include a cap member with a circular base portion and an eccentric raised portion. The raised portion includes first and second lobes and is smoothly contoured to provide an unobtrusive profile when implanted. Beveled teeth project from the implant to provide fixation and compression across the facet joint. The cap member includes an offset aperture which receives a fastener. Tools, guiding instruments and methods for implantation of the implants are disclosed.

The present disclosure relates to bone and joint fixation and instrumentation and methods for preparation and implantation of these devices. Joint fixation may be necessary in cases of pain and inflammation due to cartilage degeneration, nerve impingement, spinal misalignment, and motion instability. The primary examples described herein illustrate how this concept is applied to the facet joint, but this concept applies equally to other joints where similar causes of pain and inflammation are indicated.
Facet fixation devices are typically implanted as a minimally invasive means of posteriorly stabilizing the spine. Biomechanical studies have shown that facet screw systems perform similarly or better than pedicle screw systems. Many commercially available facet screws require a complex and timely oblique fluoroscopic technique to achieve the proper placement trajectory. The facet fixation system disclosed herein employs a simple pedicle targeting trajectory requiring only M/L and A/P fluoroscopy. The cap geometry reduces placement sensitivity and allows the surgeon to capture and compress an increased bone surface, while optionally lateralizing the implant to better accommodate interspinous process access.
Those of skill in the art will recognize that the following description is merely illustrative of the principles of the disclosure, which may be applied in various ways to provide many different alternative embodiments and may be applicable outside the fields of surgery or medical devices. While the present disclosure is made in the context of facet joints in the lumbar spinal region for the purposes of illustrating the concepts of the design, it is contemplated that the present design and/or variations thereof may be suited to other uses, such as cervical facet joints, thoracic facet joints, other joints in the human body, or to stabilize bone fractures, etc. Moreover, the implants, instrumentation and methods set forth herein may be used in open, percutaneous, and/or minimally invasive procedures and may be placed via intra-facet, trans-facet, trans-laminar, or trans-pedicle means.
All changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are to be embraced within their scope.
Standard medical planes of reference and descriptive terminology are employed in this specification. A sagittal plane divides a body into right and left portions. A mid-sagittal plane divides the body into equal right and left halves. A coronal plane divides a body into anterior and posterior portions. A transverse plane divides a body into superior and inferior portions. Anterior means toward the front of the body. Posterior means toward the back of the body. Superior means toward the head. Inferior means toward the feet. Medial means toward the midline of the body. Lateral means away from the midline of the body. Axial means toward a central axis of the body. Abaxial means away from a central axis of the body. Ipsilateral means on the same side of the body. Contralateral means on the opposite side of the body. These descriptive terms may be applied to an animate or inanimate body.


An apparatus and method for telephony tone signal and character code generation for QWERTY keyboards includes a QWERTY style keyboard, a processor and a keyboard mode control software module. The QWERTY style keyboard has a plurality of letter keys, wherein each letter key is configured to generate a unique input signal. The processor is coupled to the keyboard and is configured to convert each unique input signal generated by the letter keys into a character code and/or a telephony tone signal. The keyboard mode control software module operates on the processor, and controls whether the processor converts the unique input signals from the letter keys into character codes or telephony tone signals.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of keyboard user interfaces. In particular, the invention provides a multifunctional keyboard for a mobile communication device and method of operating the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Advances in communication technology have created a convergence between the fields of data and telephony communications. Traditional communication devices, however, typically include two separate interfaces; one for telephony communication, and one for data communication. Other known communication devices utilize the limited character mapping available on a typical telephone keypad to perform data entry functions. For instance, current telephone keypads map keys to characters on a one-to-many basis: 12 keys (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, *, 0, #) correspond to 26 characters (ABC, DEF, GHI, JKL, MNO, PQRS, TUV, WXYZ). In addition, most such telephone keypads do not include many of the characters from the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) character code. In other known communication devices, including many cellular phones, data may be entered with a typical telephone keypad by repeatedly pressing a key to cycle through a number of associated character codes. For instance, repeatedly pressing the keypad key "2" on a typical cellular phone may cycle through the characters A, B, C, a, b, c, and 2.

Multifunctional keyboard for a mobile communication device and method of operating the same


A method and apparatus for measuring the thickness of ice on an aircraft member is disclosed. In the preferred embodiment, the apparatus is mounted beneath an aircraft member surface. The apparatus includes transducers for transmitting ultrasonic signals through the aircraft member and ice at predetermined applied voltages and frequencies. The apparatus measures the current and phase angle relative to voltage associated with each transducer and frequency. The apparatus calculates the impedance of the transducer transmitting through aircraft member and any ice accumulation from the applied voltage and measured current and phase angle relative to voltage at each of the predetermined frequencies. The apparatus then computes the ice thickness by determining the frequencies where the impedance is a peak. The invention also broadly comprises an apparatus and a method for the detection of ice on an aircraft member.

This invention relates to the detection of ice on the surface of an aircraft. More specifically it relates to a method and apparatus for the measurement of the thickness of ice on an aircraft surface.
It is well known that ice buildup on aircraft is a potentially serious safety issue. Ice buildup, in addition to increasing the weight of the aircraft, can interfere with the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft. In particular, ice buildup on wings changes the effective airfoil shape of the wing, and can possibly cause the flow over the wing to become turbulent. This reduces lift, increases drag, and makes the plane more difficult to control.
There are three types of ice that can form on an aircraft: rime, clear, and mixed. Rime tends to form from water that freezes as it hits the plane. Thus, rime generally forms on the leading edge of wings and tails. It is thicker than clear ice, as it traps air in it as it freezes. Clear ice does not entirely freeze as it hits. A portion of the water freezes on the initial contact surface, and then the rest freezes as it flows back over the aircraft. Clear ice has a denser buildup on the leading edge, and more buildup on the rest of the aircraft. Mixed ice is a combination of clear and rime ice. Clear ice can be the most dangerous, as most ice detection and deicing systems are installed at or near the leading edge of the wings and tail. Therefore, clear ice can buildup without the pilots realizing it, and it cannot be removed until the plane lands.
Various devices have been developed to detect the presence of ice on a surface such as an aircraft member. Often, they include locating a part of the detector on the outside surface of the aircraft. One example is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,585,551 (Johansson et al.). In the invention disclosed in this patent, a wire is routed through holes in the aircraft skin, along the outer surface, and back through holes to the inside of the aircraft. The problems with this system can include: weakening of the structure by drilling holes in the surface, adverse aerodynamic consequences by placing holes and wire on the surface, and the inability of the system to detect the thickness of the ice.
Other systems have attempted to avoid aerodynamic problems by mounting the apparatus within the aircraft. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,604,612 (Watkins et al.) and 4,461,178 (Chamuel) disclose inventions that connect transducers to the inside surface and measure the effect on a wave that propagates down the surface from a transmitter to a receiver. These devices involve mounting the transmitter and receiver a significant space from each other such that the wave will propagate from one to the other. This reduces the locations on an aircraft where the transducers can be mounted. The effect of the ice on the wave will vary according to the thickness of the ice, which can vary along the path from the transmitter to the receiver. Thus, these methods are more effective at detecting the presence of ice, rather than measuring the thickness of ice buildup.
Methods to measure the thickness of ice have been disclosed, such as those discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,507,183 (Larue et al.) and 4,628,736 (Kirby et al.). Larue et al.""s invention includes a transmitter and receiver on a block mounted flush with the aircraft surface. It reflects an ultrasonic wave off the face of the block facing the outside. If there is ice on the surface, an additional reflection from the ice/air interface is received after the reflection from the block/ice interface. Measuring the time delay and knowing the speed of sound through ice enables calculation of the thickness. Kirby et al.""s invention uses one transmitter/receiver mounted flush with the surface to send ultrasonic waves out from the surface. If ice is present, it measures the time delay between the emission and reflection to find the thickness of the ice. Both of these devices are mounted flush to avoid interfering with the aerodynamics of the aircraft. However, this type of device can be more difficult to manufacture than a device mounted inside the surface. In addition, holes in the aircraft member""s surface to accommodate these devices may reduce the structure""s ability to bear loads.
Clearly, then, there is a longfelt need for an ice detection apparatus that can measure the thickness of ice on the aircraft surface which requires only minor structural changes to the aircraft to accommodate installation.
The present invention broadly comprises a method and apparatus for measuring the thickness of ice on an aircraft member. In the preferred embodiment, the apparatus is mounted beneath an aircraft member surface. The apparatus includes transducers for transmitting ultrasonic signals through the aircraft, member and ice at predetermined applied voltages and frequencies. The apparatus measures the current and current phase angle, relative to the applied voltage, associated with each transducer and frequency. The apparatus calculates the resistive component of the impedances of the transducers which will peak at frequencies dependent upon the thickness of ice accumulation on the aircraft member. The impedance will peak where the combined thickness of the aircraft member and the ice is an odd multiple of a quarter wavelength of the transmitted signal. The apparatus then computes the ice thickness by determining those frequencies where the impedance is a peak, calculating the thickness of the ice and member based upon the determined frequencies and their wavelength relationships, and subtracting the member thickness. The invention also broadly comprises an apparatus and a method for the detection of ice on an aircraft member.
A general object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for measuring the thickness of ice on an aircraft surface.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for detecting the presence of ice on an aircraft surface.
It is a further object to provide an apparatus that can be mounted inside the surface of the aircraft.
It is still a further object to provide an apparatus that is small enough in size such that it can be mounted inside small surfaces of the aircraft, so that the thickness of ice can be measured in the maximum number of locations.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon a reading of the following detailed description of the invention in view of the drawings and claims.

Method and apparatus for detecting and measuring thickness of ice on aircraft


Provided is an on-vehicle network which can improve the network use efficiency and reduce the controller processor overhead even when the same communication cycle as the frame cannot be set in the filtering condition of a communication control device. A reference signal transmission controller is arranged in a network so as to generate and transmit a reference signal in accordance with the communication cycle. A reference signal reception controller receives the reference signal and compares the reference signals to a predetermined filtering condition table. If the signal is matched with the table, the controller executes a data reception process and a data transmission process.

Recently, a time synchronous communication network has been used for an on-vehicle network which communicates among a plurality of on-vehicle electronics devices equipped on a vehicle in order to secure real-time process of communication. One of the examples of methods for the time synchronous communication is FlexRay. In FlexRay, one cycle of communication is referred to as a communication cycle. The communication cycle includes a plurality of slots and is previously assigned to each controller on a network. Each controller executes a transmission process of a frame or a reception process of a frame among assigned slots.
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram showing an on-vehicle network and controllers using a time synchronous communication network. As shown in FIG. 1, each of controllers 1, 2 is connected to a network (a network bus) and mainly includes a processor 11, a memory 12 and a communication control device 13. The communication control device 13 counts communication cycles and stores in a communication cycle counter 14. Each communication control device 13 in the controller 1 and the controller 2 exchanges the communication cycle 1004 among the communication control devices and controls the communication cycle 1004 to constantly keep the same value. A slot counter 18 is incremented from 0 at the starting time of the communication cycle.
A filtering condition 17 determines a condition of the communication cycle and the slot value when a frame transmission and frame reception are executed. In the frame transmission, the communication control device 13 transmits frames in which the communication cycle is matched with the slot value based on a filtering condition 17 from a transmission buffer 15 assigned to each frame. In the frame reception, the communication control device 13 receives the frames in which the communication cycle is matched with the slot value based on a filtering condition 17 from a network 3 and stores the frames in a reception buffer 16 which is statically assigned to each frame.
FIG. 14 shows an example of slot assignment when frame A and frame C are transmitted in a cycle from the controller 1 to the controller 2. A cycle length of the communication cycle is set to 10 msec (a length of the communication cycle counter), and a communication cycle of each frame is set to 20 msec (which is 2 when converted to the communication cycle counter). As shown in FIG. 14, when a filtering condition 17 of frame A is set to "communication cycle=2N (N is a number from 0 to 31)" and a filtering condition 17 of frame C is set to "communication cycle=2N+1 (N is a number from 0 to 31)", frame A and C can be transmitted and received using the same slot.
As described above, the time synchronous communication, which executes the frame transmission and the frame reception in synchronization with the communication cycle and the slot, does not generate competition on the network. As a result, bandwidths of the network can be used effectively.


Difficult-to-bond substrates possessing low surface energies are bonded with moisture curable polyurethane hot melt adhesive comprising a polyurethane prepolymer which is the reaction product of a polyol component and a polyisocyanate component, wherein said polyol component comprises a polyester polyol which is the reaction product of diacid comprising aromatic diacid and optional co-monomer diacid and diol, with the proviso that said diacid is substantially free of phthalic acid or derivatives thereof.

This invention relates to a moisture curable polyurethane hot melt adhesive and to a method of bonding substrates using the adhesive. In particular, this invention relates to a one component moisture curable polyurethane hot melt adhesive useful for bonding low surface energy substrates such as difficult-to-bond acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) substrates.
Moisture curable polyurethane hot melt adhesives are substantially solvent-free solids at room temperature that bond after application in the form of their melts by cooling and curing by the chemical reaction of isocyanate groups with moisture. Upon curing, the molecule size increases and the adhesive obtains its final characteristics.
Although suitable for many applications, moisture curable polyurethane hot melt adhesives have demonstrated limited ability to bond to certain low surface energy substrates, in particular difficult-to-bond ABS. ABS polymers are elastomeric and thermoplastic composites that exhibit excellent toughness. This property allows ABS to be used in a variety of applications making it one of the largest selling thermoplastics. A more complete description of the properties of ABS may be found in the Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Engineering, Vol. 1:388-426 (Wiley, 1985).
Because of differences in its composition and production, not all grades of ABS are alike. While some ABS substrates are relatively easy to bond with moisture curable polyurethane hot melt adhesives, those skilled in the art generally recognize that many ABS substrates, referred to herein as difficult-to-bond ABS, are a challenge for polyurethane hot melt adhesives. For example, ABS substrates sold by Spartech Plastics, La Mirada, Calif. and Gage Plastics, Lake Oswego, Oreg. cannot be bonded with conventional moisture curable polyurethane hot melt adhesives.
While the reason for this shortcoming is not entirely clear, it is believed that the low surface energy of Spartech or Gage ABS renders it extremely difficult to bond with conventional polyurethane hot melt adhesives. Another possibility is that oil, mold release agent, and other possibly low molecular weight contaminants which may be used in the production process of ABS contribute to the difficulty of bonding ABS with polyurethane hot melt adhesives.
Thus, a moisture curable polyurethane hot melt adhesive that bonds to low surface energy substrates such as difficult-to-bond ABS, polyethylene, polypropylene, aluminum, and steel, as well as other substrates such as fiber-reinforced plastic, plywood, paper board, and the like, is highly desired.

Moisture curable hot melt adhesive and method for bonding substrates using same


Selection of input of a touch sensing surface is provided. Contacts on or near a surface are tracked to obtain touch information of the contacts. A first gesture is detected corresponding to first touch information of a number of contacts performing an activity, and a first input corresponding to the first gesture is selected. A second gesture is detected corresponding to second touch information of a number of contacts performing an activity. A determination of whether to select a second input corresponding to the second gesture is made. The second input is selected if third information satisfies a predetermined criteria, and the first input is maintained if the third information does not satisfy the predetermined criteria.

Many types of input devices are presently available for performing operations in a computing system, such as buttons or keys, mice, trackballs, joysticks, touch sensor panels, touch screens and the like. Touch screens, in particular, are becoming increasingly popular because of their ease and versatility of operation as well as their declining price. Touch screens can include a transparent touch sensor panel positioned in front of a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), or an integrated touch screen in which touch sensing circuitry is partially or fully integrated into a display, etc. Touch screens can allow a user to perform various functions by touching the touch screen using a finger, stylus or other object at a location that may be dictated by a user interface (UI) being displayed by the display device. In general, touch screens can recognize a touch event and the position of the touch event on the touch sensor panel, and the computing system can then interpret the touch event in accordance with the display appearing at the time of the touch event, and thereafter can perform one or more actions based on the touch event.
Mutual capacitance touch sensor panels, for example, can be formed from a matrix of drive and sense lines of a substantially transparent conductive material such as Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), often arranged in rows and columns in horizontal and vertical directions on a substantially transparent substrate. Drive signals can be transmitted through the drive lines, which can make it possible to measure the static mutual capacitance at the crossover points or adjacent areas (sensing pixels) of the drive lines and the sense lines. The static mutual capacitance, and any changes to the static mutual capacitance due to a touch event, can be determined from sense signals that can be generated in the sense lines due to the drive signals.


It is presented a method for configuring a network path. The method is performed in a routing control device of a software defined network and comprises the steps of: receiving a first node packet originating from a first node of the software defined network, the first node packet forming part of an ARP exchange between an ARP requester and an ARP responder, the first node packet comprising a request for network properties encoded in a first address; determining a network path through the software defined network; changing a source address of a packet to the ARP requester to be a second address; configuring all switches forming part of the network path, to route packets in accordance with the network path; and configuring an edge switch to replace, for all packets having a destination address being equal to the second address, the destination address with an address of the ARP responder.

Routers and switches use packet headers to route the data flows in a network. The switches often rely on MAC (Media Access Control) addresses and routers use IP addresses to forward and route the data flows between two end hosts in a network. In addition, labelling and tunnelling techniques can be used to route the data flows. VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network) is the most well-known example of labelling and tunnelling technology in which the switches tag the data flows with a VLAN ID and forward the data flows based on the VLAN identifier. More sophisticated techniques have also been developed to extend the tunnelling techniques to large scale networks.
The advent of software defined networks (SDN) has improved network forwarding operations by creating more control over the data flows. In an SDN, the switches often forward new flows to a routing control device which then decides how to forward the flows by instructing the switches (e.g. using OpenFlow protocol) to thereby control routing of the data flows. SDN technology enhances the forwarding operations and allows administrators to assign customised labels, changes to the packet headers and routing of data flows in a centralised way.
A problem with the available technologies is that host and network selection of the "best path" may have conflicts, and often the network is unaware of the requirements of applications running on end hosts. As an example, the server may run a latency sensitive service. However, the network does not know about the requirements of services running on the end host and it may not choose the path with lowest latency for this service.
To tackle this problem, a set of network APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) have been suggested for SDNs, to provide access to the routing control device. The APIs allow the routing control device to gain better information to be able to define an improved path per flow in the network. However, this approach is impractical and introduces a security risk for SDN operators by providing API access for end hosts to the routing control device.


A heterojunction bipolar transistor includes an emitter layer of a first conductivity type, a base layer of a second conductivity type adjacent to the emitter layer, a collector buffer layer of the first conductivity type, and a collector layer arranged between the collector buffer layer and the base layer. The collector layer includes a first collector layer formed at the side of the base layer and a second collector layer arranged at the side of the collector buffer layer. The first collector layer is a semiconductor layer having an impurity concentration lower than that of the base layer. The second collector layer is a semiconductor layer of the second conductivity type having an impurity concentration higher than that of the first collector layer.

The present invention relates to a bipolar transistor which can operate at a high operating frequency and with a high speed, more particularly, to a heterojunction bipolar transistor.
In a conventional transistor of this type, e.g., in an n-p-n heterojunction bipolar transistor, a semiconductor layer (collector layer) for forming a base-collector depletion layer consists of an n-type layer having a concentration lower than concentrations of a base layer, where the n-type collector layer has a uniform or an inclined concentration distribution. A heterojunction bipolar transistor (to be referred to as an "HBT" hereinafter) using a III-V Group semiconductor (e.g., GaAs) which has been widely developed in recent years has a similar impurity structure.
In this conventional structure, an electrical field intensity in the base-collector depletion layer which is mostly determined by an impurity concentration of the collector layer is significantly high. If, for example, the impurity concentration is 5.times.10.sup.16 /cm.sup.3, the electric field intensity of the base-collector depletion layer is increased more than 100 kV/cm when an appropriate bias voltage is applied to terminals of transistor for transistor operation. Therefore, under such a high electric field, an electron velocity in the depletion layer is determined as an "electron saturation velocity (Vs)" as is well known, and a corresponding collector transit time t.sub.C is given as follows: EQU t.sub.C =W.sub.C /2Vs
where W.sub.C is a base-collector depletion layer width.
In an Si bipolar transistor, since a ratio of a base transit time t.sub.B to a total delay time of an element is large and the collector transit time t.sub.C has minor contribution, almost no problem is posed. However, since the base transit time t.sub.B is very short in an AlGaAs/GaAs HBT or the like, contribution of the collector transit time t.sub.C poses a great concern.
Transport of electrons in a collector in a conventional AlGaAs/GaAs HBT will be described with reference to FIGS. 1(a) to 1(c). FIG. 1(a) shows an energy band diagram, FIG. 1(b) shows a layer arrangement, and FIG. 1(c) shows an electric field distribution in a collector depletion layer In FIGS. 1(a) and 1(b), reference numeral 1 denotes an emitter layer; 2, a base layer; 3, a collector layer; 4, a collector electrode layer; 5, a conduction band edge; 6 a valence band edge; 7, an energy band edge curve representing the bottom of an L valley; 8, an energy curve representing the bottom of a .GAMMA. valley in this case, equal to 5; and 9, electrons. In a normal state wherein a base/collector junction forms a p.sup.+ -n diode, an electric field intensity is maximized just inside of the collector layer on a junction plane as indicated by an electric field intensity profile line 10 in FIG. 1(c). Therefore, since an energy of the electrons 9 injected from a base into the collector is increased higher before they run several hundreds .ANG., the electrons 9 enter into and are distributed not only in a .GAMMA. valley but also in the L and X valleys having high energies. This is inherent because, as long as a base/collector bias voltage is plotted on the reverse biasing side with respect to about +0.5 V, i.e., it falls within an active region of the transistor, electron energy exceeds easily an energy between the L valley and a lower .GAMMA. valley is about 0.3 eV in GaAs.
When the electrons 9 move to the L or X valley, an electron velocity becomes a so-called saturation velocity Vs. When GaAs is used, the saturation velocity Vs is around 7.times.10.sup.6 cm/sec. Since an effective mass of the electrons entering into the L or X valley becomes larger than that of the electrons distributed in the .GAMMA. valley, the electron velocity in these valleys becomes smaller than that obtained in the .GAMMA. valley.
Recently, "A Proposed Structure for Collector Transit-Time Reduction in AlGaAs/GaAs Bipolar Transistors" by C. M. Maziar et al. (IEEE, Electron Dev. Lett. EDL-7, No. 8, pp. 483-485, 1986) describes a proposal of reducing an electric field intensity in the collector depletion layer on the base side and increasing an electron velocity. That is, by changing a conductivity type of a collector layer from a conventional n-type to a p-type, the peak of an electric field is shifted to the side of a collector electrode layer.
However, a degree of such an improvement is only several tens% in terms of a collector transit time. This is because, although an overshoot effect (i.e., a phenomenon in which an electron velocity is transitionally increased) is partially utilized, this effect is not significant as a whole since the electrons 9 transits a region of 50% or more of a base-collector depletion layer at a saturation velocity.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation


The present invention relates to a device for installation into a hose and/or plastic pipe system and mounting of flow measurement sensors which comprises a plastic flow part as a hollow body with a centrally arranged and deformable region with a rectangular cross section. The present invention further relates to the use of the abovementioned device as well as to a method of flow measurement using the device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for installation in a hose and/or plastic pipe system and mounting of flow measurement sensors, having a plastic flow part as a hollow body with a centrally arranged and deformable region with a rectangular cross section, with two opposing sensor contact surfaces and two opposing pressure region surfaces being arranged on the outer surface of the centrally arranged region, and two connection regions for connecting to hoses and/or plastic pipes flanking the centrally arranged region. Moreover, the present invention relates to the use of the aforementioned device as well as to a method of flow measurement using the device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Flow measurements are performed in pipe and hose systems in a great number of processes in the automation of industrial or technical laboratory processes. To this end, flow meters are installed in all places in which the current delivery in the pipe or hose network is to be detected or the throughput is to be checked and further processed. Along with temperature, pressure and force, flow measurement constitutes one of the most important variables in industrial metrology and is an essential foundation of process automation.
In automated processes, the flow measurements vary depending on the method of measurement and the medium to be measured. A distinction is made between mechanical/volumetric, thermal, acoustic, magnetic/inductive, optical, gyroscopic or differential pressure/congestion methods. What all of the methods have in common, however, is the recording of certain physical characteristics, e.g., temperature, pressure, sound, acceleration, rotational speed, etc., via a measurement sensor.
In closed pipe or hose line systems, the flow measurements are divided into two subgroups based on medium and output signal, namely volumetric flow and mass flow. Furthermore, depending on the measurement setup, a distinction is made between so-called clamp-on flowmeters from in-line flow measurements. In the in-line flow measurements, the measurement sensors are mounted in the flow profile of the medium to be measured, whereas the clamp-on systems are placed from the outside onto the pipe or the hose and clamped.
Such a clamp-on system is described in JP 04940384 B1. It discloses an ultrasound flowmeter in which a hose through which the fluid to be measured flows is placed into a hinged measuring device and fixed in place by pressing the measuring device together. Through the deformation of the hose, the flow profile of the medium to be measured is altered into a nearly rectangular profile. However, as a result of fluctuations in the density and thickness of the hoses used as well as the resulting fluctuations in the internal cross section, severe measurement inaccuracies can occur when determining the volumetric flow. Both the reproducibility of the measurement results and the calibration of the overall system are thus also greatly impaired. What is more, the hose can bend or twist within the measurement unit during use or kink directly behind the measurement unit, which also leads to measurement inaccuracies.
For rigid pipe systems, a fixed component is known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,026,693 that can be installed into a pipe system via corresponding fittings or flanges. Pairs of ultrasound sensing elements are mounted on the rectangular-shaped component directly behind the flange regions from the outside. The fluid to be measured is changed by the component without transition from a round to an angular flow profile. As a result of the abrupt change from a round to an angular flow profile, turbulent flows are produced that can have a negative influence on the flow measurement. The rigid component is suitable for fixed pipelines having diameters from 2 to 24 inches. As a result of the structural unity of sensors and the actual flow component with a defined cross section, no variance is possible in relation to the sensing element to be connected on the one hand and the pipe diameter on the other hand.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a device for flow measurement that is suitable for use in a plastic hose and/or plastic pipe system while avoiding the abovementioned drawbacks of the prior art. Moreover, it is the object of the present invention to provide a method of flow measurement using such a device.

Device for flow measurement in hose and/or plastic pipe systems


A method for determining parameters for the position and orientation of the cornea of an eye and involves the steps of generating linear structures on the iris and/or sclera of the eye, having a camera capture a first image of the eye including the linear structures, and determining, on the basis of the first image, a distance and an orientation of the linear structures in relation to the camera.

The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for determining the position and the orientation of an eye.
Such methods and apparatuses are used in particular during refractive eye surgery, wherein the total refractive power of the eye can be altered and conventional optical corrections such as spectacles or contact lenses can ideally be obviated thereafter. Particularly during laser ablation for changing the corneal curvature, wherein generally an ablation laser beam is guided over the curved surface of the cornea, during the treatment it is necessary to know the exact position of the eye and also the orientation of the eye—that is to say the orientation of the eye with respect to three angles in space. The position of the eyeball in a Cartesian coordinate system with the coordinates X, Y and Z and also the orientation of the eyeball in relation to three spatial angles Rollx, Rolly and Rollz are defined as follows in accordance with FIG. 2:
The Cartesian coordinates X, Y and Z are chosen such that the Z-axis substantially coincides with a laser processing axis A3 and is oriented in the viewing direction. The X-axis is oriented such that the X-axis coincides with the horizontal when a person is standing upright. Correspondingly, the Y-axis is arranged vertically. The spatial or rotation angles of the eyeball are defined in a manner corresponding to the Cartesian coordinates as roll angles Rollx, Rolly and Rollz. The angle Rollz is also called cyclotorsion.
One option for capturing the position and orientation of the eye consists in recording a camera image of the surface of the eye. The evaluation of the camera image has to take account of all possible movements of the eye during such an operation.

Method and apparatus for determining the position and/or the orientation of an eye


Compounds represented by the α-amino acid derivative or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof of the present invention have a therapeutic effect due to a DPP-IV inhibitory action and useful as pharmaceutical agents for the treatment and/or prophylaxis of diseases relating to a DPP-IV inhibitor.

DPP-IV is a serine protease, which recognizes an amino acid sequence having proline (or alanine or hydroxyproline) the penultimate position from the N-terminal and produces dipeptide Xaa-Pro (Xaa shows an optional amino acid and Pro shows L-proline). DPP-IV is widely distributed in mammalian tissues and is known to be present particularly in blood, kidney, intestinal epithelium and placenta.
While the physiological role of DPP-IV in mammal has not been completely elucidated, its involvement in a broad range of functions of living organisms such as degradation of neuropeptide (see non-patent reference 1), activation of T cell (see non-patent reference 2), adhesion of metastatic tumor cell to endothelium (see non-patent reference 3), invasion of HIV virus into lymphocytes (see non-patent reference 4) and the like is being clarified. Of these, the role of DPP-IV as an enzyme that inactivates glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1), which is a biogenic substance having a strong insulin secretion ability and controls postprandial blood glucose level, has been drawing attention (see non-patent reference 5).
GLP-1 is known to be metabolized in several minutes in a living organism. In the metabolism, that by DPP-IV is particularly important, because DPP-IV quickly cleaves GLP-1 to produce inert GLP-1 (see non-patent reference 6). In addition, it is considered that physiological action of GLP-1 becomes attenuated further because this inert GLP-1 shows an antagonistic action on GLP-1 receptor (see non-patent reference 7). Therefore, a method for suppressing cleavage of GLP-1 by inhibition of DPP-IV is considered to be the most superior approach for reinforcing GLP-1 action. That is, a DPP-IV inhibitor is expected to be a superior treatment method of curing postprandial hyperglycemia without side effects, such as prolonged hypoglycemia and the like, for non insulin-dependent diabetic (type II diabetes) patients.
Patent applications directed to DPP-IV inhibitors have been already filed.
A compound consisting of a natural amino acid and thiazolidine or pyrrolidine is known to show a DPP-IV inhibitory action (see patent reference 1). Besides this reference, compounds consisting of cyclohexylglycines and thiazolidine have been disclosed (see patent reference 2).    patent reference 1: WO99/61431    patent reference 2: WO02/76450    non-patent reference 1: Heymann et al., FEBS Letters, vol. 91, 360-364 (1978).    non-patent reference 2: Schon et al., Biomedica Biochimica Acta., vol. 44, K9-K15 (1985).    non-patent reference 3: Johnson et al., Journal of Cell Biology, vol. 121, 1423-1432 (1993).    non-patent reference 4: Callebaut et al., Science, vol. 262, 2045-2050 (1993).    non-patent reference 5: Deacon et al., Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, vol. 80, 952-957 (1995).    non-patent reference 6: Deacon et al., American Journal of Physiology, vol. 271, E458-E464 (1996).    non-patent reference 7: Knudsen et al., European Journal of Pharmacology, vol. 318, 429-435 (1996).

α-amino acid derivatives and use thereof as medicines


Methods and systems for authenticating documents. Document data to be modified to contain authentication is inputted. A representation is determined from the document data. Assist information that is usable to reliably recover a determined representation is determined. A one-way hash of the representation and assist information is determined. The one-way hash is then cryptographically signed. The assist information and digitally signed one-way hash is then appended to the document.

1. Field of Invention
This invention is directed to systems and methods for authenticating documents.
2. Description of Related Art
There are a number of situations where a sender transmits a document to a receiver and wants to assure the receiver that the document has not been altered during the transmission. In other words, the sender wants to authenticate the document.
Paper documents are traditionally authenticated either through elaborate printing techniques, such as, for example, money, or through trusted signatures and stamps, such as, for example, notarizing by a public notary. The signing and verifying processes of these current methods are not automated and require human intervention. Nor are these processes very reliable.
There are more recent methods that work on digital document data. During verification, these methods are applied to paper documents by acquiring a scanned image of the printed authenticated document. The resulting scanned image is then verified using some known verification scheme. These techniques, unfortunately, do not work well because, when the document is scanned by the receiver, the resulting scanned image usually differs from the original document content used during authentication. This occurs due to the noise inherent in scanning a document. The noise introduced by scanning makes it difficult to construct an authentication scheme that is resilient in view of the noise.
A method that authenticates photo-identification cards and has to cope with noise being introduced due to scanning is disclosed in "Secure Identification Documents Via Pattern Recognition and Public-Key Cryptography", by L. O'Gorman et al., IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol. 20, No. 10, pages 1097-1102, October 1998. However, the authentication signature disclosed by O'Gorman et al. has a file size that is linear to the size of the photograph. This method does not scale well as the size of a document increases. The method disclosed in O'Gorman et al. would create an authentication file that would be large in comparison to the document. This tends to render the O'Gorman et al. method inefficient.

Systems and methods for authenticating documents


A device for open load diagnosis of a signal line in a digital system in which a logic state is represented by a band of voltages lying between first and second voltage limits is described. The device is configured to cause the signal line to reach a first, stable voltage lying in the band, to apply a second, different voltage to the signal line lying in the band and without leaving the band, to perform a time constant dependent measurement so as to determine a value of a parameter which is or depends on resistance of a load between the signal line and a reference line, to compare the value of the parameter with a reference value of the parameter and, in dependence on comparison, to signal the result.

Fault diagnosis is becoming increasingly important for integrated circuits (ICs), including mixed-signal application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and application-specific standard product (ASSPs). This is because electronic systems are increasingly being introduced into motor vehicles and industrial plant, and these systems are usually subject to functional safety requirements. One such requirement is the need for reliable detection of external load conditions.
A motor vehicle or industrial system may include one or more communication networks, such as, for example FlexRay®, Controller Area Network (CAN) and Ethernet. However, such systems can include simpler, single-wire communication or control networks. For example, a single wire control system may be used to allow a engine control unit (ECU) to an ignition IGBT driver.
Several arrangements for carrying open load diagnosis for a signal-wire communication system are known.
US 2002/0070773 A1 describes a driver switching stage which can carry out open-load diagnosis.


A runout measurement system is proposed for measuring the runout of a moving surface of a device having a rotating body, such as a mass storage device (100) (e.g. a hard disk drive) having a rotor which in use includes a rotating recording medium. A sensor (102) interacting with the moving surface obtains a displacement signal. The displacement signal is sampled by a sampling unit (104) controlled by a unit (109) which initiates sampling based on both a signal indicating a ZCP and the clock signal of a high frequency (e.g. 20 MHz) clock (106). Simultaneously, the same clock (106) is used by a counter 108 to measure the spacing between one or more ZCP times. This permits the correspondence between the sampling times and the angular position of the rotor to be found with a high accuracy which depends upon the clock frequency, and thereby allows calculation of repeatable runout (RRO) and non-repeatable runout (NRRO).

In a data storage device having a disk-shaped rotating recording medium, the surface of the disk is divided into many concentric data tracks and every track is separated into many sectors or segments. An example of such a data storage device is a HDD typically spun by a spindle motor. In the case of a HDD, "runout' is defined as the departure of the movement of a spindle motor or spinning disk segment from ideal circular motion. Due to fabricating precision limitations, such as bearing tolerances, rotor eccentricity, and unbalanced mass, runout inevitably exists in all spindles. FIG. 1 illustrates this for a typical spindle platter. FIG. 1(a) shows by the arc Si the points on the disk surface which constitute the i-th disk segment, including a centre point Pi, when the disk has a radial motion indicated as ωr. FIG. 1(b) shows by a dashed line ideal circular motion as the spindle platter performs a complete rotation, and the solid line indicates the actual motion of the point Pi. FIG. 1(c) shows by the solid lines the motion of the point Pi during multiple rotations.
As the disk spins, each segment of the track circumference on disk surface travels underneath one or more read/write heads. In a hard disk drive, there are two sorts of runouts: radial and axial runouts. Radial runout is defined as the radial variation in the distance between the read/write head and the ideal circular as shown in FIG. 2. FIG. 2(a) shows the spatial relation of the spindle platter and the read/write head, with the dashed line showing many segments. FIG. 2(b) shows the runout during multiple rotations of the spindle patter. The displacement of each segment centre point from the ideal concentric circular is defined as the radial runout in IDEMA standards. For a specific track where the read/write head is positioned, the radial runout of the ith segment can be expressed as:dr(i,j)|re=rPij(θi)−re  (1)where Pi is the center point of the ith segment, the variable rPi is its radius value in polar coordinates, the variable rc is the radius of the ideal circle of the detected track, the variable θi is the angular of the center point, Pi, of the ith segment and the index j denotes the jth revolution the disk has spun.
At the same time, there exists the axial runout which is defined as variations in the distance between the head and the disk surface. The axial runout is caused mainly by the surface profile of the disk and the bearing floating height. Large and fast axial runout usually increases the risk of a head crash. For a specific track where the read/write head is positioned, the axial runout of the ith segment can be expressed as:dz(i,j)|re=zPij(θi,rPij)−zc(rc)  (2)where the variable zP is the z-axial value of the detected segment in three-dimensional polar coordinates and zc is the z-axial value of the ideal circle at the radius rc.
Measurement of radial and axial runouts is critical in the hard disk drive industry. As a disk rotates, the read/write heads must be positioned at a specific radius in order to read or write the data from/to a selected track. Data written at a track segment of a disk surface will not be read properly if the location of the track segment appears at a different radial location relative to the head position system. Since these radial and axial runout orbits do not repeat themselves in each revolution, the total indicated runouts (TIR) are the sum of two components, i.e., repeatable runout (RRO) and non-repeatable runout (NRRO). The RRO component happens synchronously with the rotor angular position in each revolution and the NRRO component is different in each revolution even at the same angular position of the rotor.
According to IDEMA standard T17-91 and ANSI/ASME B89.3.4M, the radial and axial RRO and NRRO during N revolutions can be expressed as following equations.
                              a          )                                                          Radial                                                  RRO                          :                                                                                RRO            r                                          (            i            )                          =                                            1              N                                                                  ∑                                  j                  =                  1                                N                                                                                dr                                                  (                                      i                    ,                    j                                    )                                                              =                                    1              N                                                                  ∑                                  j                  =                  1                                N                                                                                [                                                                            r                                              P                        i                                            j                                                                                (                                              θ                        i                                            )                                                        -                                      r                    c                                                  ]                                                                        (        3        )                                          b          )                                                          Radial                                                  NRRO                          :                                                                                NRRO            r                                          (                          i              ,              j                        )                          =                                            r                              P                i                            j                                                  (                              θ                i                            )                                -                                    1              N                                                                  ∑                                  j                  =                  1                                N                                                                            r                                      P                    i                                    j                                                                  (                                      θ                    i                                    )                                                                                (        4        )                                          c          )                                                          Axial                                                  RRO                          :                                                                                RRO            z                                          (            i            )                          =                                            1              N                                                                  ∑                                  j                  =                  1                                N                                                                                dz                                                  (                                      i                    ,                    j                                    )                                                              =                                    1              N                                                                  ∑                                  j                  =                  1                                N                                                                                [                                                                            z                                              P                        i                                            j                                                                                (                                              θ                        i                                            )                                                        -                                                            z                      c                                                                                (                                              r                        c                                            )                                                                      ]                                                                        (        5        )                                                      d            )                                                                        Axial                                                              NRRO                                :                                                                                NRRO            z                                          (                          i              ,              j                        )                          =                                            z                              P                i                            j                                                  (                                                θ                  i                                ,                                  r                                      P                    i                                    j                                            )                                -                                    1              N                                                                  ∑                                  j                  =                  1                                N                                                                            z                                      P                    i                                    j                                                                  (                                                            θ                      i                                        ,                                          r                                              P                        i                                            j                                                        )                                                                                (        6        )
With a proper control algorithm, the radial RRO component can be predicted, and compensated for in advance during the track seeking and following. But the NRRO cannot be predicted from one revolution to the next. The consequence of radial NRRO is track-mix registration (TMR). It causes non-compensable or uncorrectable TMR and off-track read/write errors in hard disk drives, which is a key factor to influence the track and areal densities of HDDs. How well a spindle motor or a spinning disk can repeat its path over many revolutions, i.e., how much the NRRO is, dictates a physical limitation on the track width or the track density.
As HDD areal density increases, track widths become smaller and the NRRO needs to be smaller too. Now the manufacturers of the high areal density HDDs are looking for more accurate and higher resolution runout measurements of spinning spindle motors and media platters in both axial and radial directions. With the areal density approaching 150 GB/in2 (23.2 GB/cm2), the track density increases to 400K TPI (tracks per inch) (160 tracks/cm), the spindle motors and assembly disks must be fabricated with the stricter runout control. Therefore the PES signal is not degraded too much and the flying distance between the read/write heads and the media does not vary too dramatically. Currently, HDD manufacturers seek 1 nanometer resolution and accuracy, but no such system is available in the market to meet this high performance requirement.
In past, several kinds of runout measurement systems for HDD have been developed. As implied in Eqs. (1) to (6), the angular position of the rotor circumference segments must be known for each sample of the signal from the sensor which detects the position of the moving surface (here referred to as the "displacement sensor", and its output as the "displacement signal"), and the first generation of runout measurement instruments usually employed an encoder to detect the angular position of the rotor. In one version, the rotor included markings which could be optically detected using an optical sensor. The output of the optical sensor, and of the displacement sensor(s) (typically capacitance sensors) measuring respectively radial and axial displacements of the rotor, were processed using an oscilloscope, which gave an input to a processor. In another arrangement, pulses generated by a photodetector by observing slits on the rotor were used to control generation of pulses which were fed to the motor to control its speed, and also fed to a processor which received a displacement signal from proximity probes measuring displacement of the disks.
However, currently all HDDs have adopted sensorless technology to control spindle motors without encoders: the processor which drives the motor does so by generating a pulsed index signal (square wave). This technology is also used in the runout measurement system for HDDs: the processor measures runout using knowledge of the timing of the index signal, together with the output of capacitance proximity sensors(s) measuring displacements of the rotor. In the market, there are several kinds of runout measurement systems used in hard disk drive industry.
The advantage of using a capacitance probe is that it can measure the absolute distance between its sensor and the tested target. However, a capacitance probe based system has several drawbacks. Firstly its sensor diameter is large; the diameter of the best available capacitance sensor is 500 microns, whereas the width of a HDD track is 0.15 microns. Secondly, its resolution is 5 nanometers for 100 KHz, which is not good enough for high frequency runout signal, such as 64 KHz (250 Hz×256 segment for 15K rpm HDDs), when 1 nanometer resolution is required. Thirdly, the best linearity is 0.25% which will cause a 25 nm error in a 10 microns runout measurement. Fourthly, the detecting distance between the sensor and the target circumference is limited to 50-100 microns for high resolution. This causes great difficulty in setting up the system to avoid a crash of the capacitance sensor and the recording media surface.
Another type of displacement sensor is a Laser Doppler Vibrometer which can measure the relative distance or the relative displacement between the sensor and the tested targeted. The advantages of a Laser Doppler Vibrometer are that it has a very small tested spot of 16 microns, high resolution of 0.1-1 nm even at 100 KHz, good linearity of 0.1%, excellent accuracy of 0.2% in a wide range, and can be operated far away from the tested target. The disadvantages are that there is a low frequency drift, and the sensor is sensitive to the roughness of the rotating tested surface. However, when high accuracy of HDD runout measurement is required, the LDV technology is the only qualified candidate at moment.
Since all HDDs adopt fluid dynamical bearings, the RRO is about 200 times the NRRO component. It means that if there is any very small error of the rotor position detection, the NRRO will be added to by a big error. Therefore, when it is needed to measure runout with high accuracy, in particular NRRO measurement, the rotor position must be measured with high accurate and resolution. Here "resolution" refers to the nominal accuracy of position measurement, and "accuracy" refers to total error.
If the rotating speed is constant, the sampling interval of the index signal can be translated to the angular position of the rotor. The maximum possible measurement error of NRRO, which is caused by both the sampling interval and the rotor position error, will be:
                              e          NRRO                ≤                              d            RRO                                          (                                                                                                n                    60                                    ×                                      t                    s                                                                              +                                                                                    Δ                                                                                θ                      err                                                                            2                                        π                                                                                        )                                              (        7        )            where dRRO is the actual peak-to-peak repeatable runout, n is the speed in rpm, ts is the sampling interval and Δθerr is the maximum error of position index per revolution. Therefore, the relative error is:
                                                        e              NRRO                                                  (              %              )                                ≤                      100                                      (                                                                                                            n                      60                                        ×                                          t                      s                                                                                        +                                                                                              Δ                                                                                θ                        err                                                                                2                                            π                                                                                                    )                                    %                          =                  100                                (                                                                            n                                      60                    ×                                          f                      s                                                                                                  +                                                                                    Δ                                                                                θ                      err                                                                            2                                        π                                                                                        )                              %                                    (        8        )            where fs is the sampling rate per signal channel.
From equation (8), both the detection of the rotor position and the sampling interval can cause additional errors to NRRO measurement. Conventionally, the sensorless rotor position detection of HDDs provides a once per-revolution pulse. From this pulse, a phase-locked loop (PLL) frequency multiplier is applied to generate N pulses per revolution, corresponding to the N segments of the detected circumference with the displacement sensors. A PLL, by necessity, has a loop filter that, in this case, samples the phase once per revolution. Due to the phase shift of the filter, the loop always lags as it tries to follow any speed change of the spindle motor. Also PLL may generate the phase jitter. When the runout is tested at different spinning speeds, this property of PLL circuitry, combined with the necessity of variable-rate sampling, increases the inaccuracy of the system in determining the angular rotor position.
Equation (8) also indicates that the sampling interval also causes an error in NRRO measurement. If the digitizing error is controlled to be smaller than 0.01%, which about 1 nm error of NRRO at 15,000 rpm, the sampling rate should be as high as 2.5 MHz. For 256 revolutions, the data will be as much as 2.56 million points and the processing time will be longer than 10 minutes for one measurement. Also such a fast sampling rate greatly increases the runout measurement system cost and size. Normally a 100-200 KHz sampling rate is applied in the runout measurement and this sampling rate alone can generate an error of more than 10 nanometers. This error is too big for 125-150 nm track width and 10 nm head/media space.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,879,124B1, authored by inventors from the Data Storage Institute in Singapore, and the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference, proposes detecting the rotor position accurately without phase delay by finding the zero crossing points (ZCP) of a signal representing the phase back EMF. Referring to FIG. 3, an example system is shown having 3 pole-pairs. It comprises a BLDC motor 20, a commutation control module 25, and a Zero Crossing Point (ZCP) detection module 35. The BLDC motor 20 comprises a stator 12 having three phases, a rotor 13, and a plurality of switches controlled by a plurality of switching signals (SAH, SBH, SCH, SAL, SBL, SCL). The switches are coupled to each phase of the stator 12 for commutating the phases of the stator.
The ZCP detection module 35 has the structure shown in FIG. 4. It receives inputs of terminal voltages from each phase of the stator 12 in the BLDC motor 20 and also a neutral voltage VN from the center of a star connection of the stator windings. The ZCP detection module 35 compares the terminal voltages with the neutral voltage VN to obtain individual phase voltages (VAN or VA−VN, VBN or VB−VN, VCN or VC−VN) of each phase and use them to determine the ZCPs. The ZCP detection module 35 is also coupled to the commutation control module 25. The commutation control module 25 receives data on the ZCPs from the ZCP detection module 35. The commutation control module 25 utilizes the data to generate the switching signals (SAH, SBH, SCH, SAL, SBL, SCL) to control the plurality of switches for the commutation control of the BLDC motor 20.
An example of phase voltage of phase A, VAN is shown in FIG. 5(a), which has six true zero crossing points per revolution. FIG. 5(b) and FIG. 5(c) show the signals SAH and SAL. The switching OFF of the switches for the phase commutation results in voltage spikes 51 in phase A as seen in FIG. 5(a). These voltage spikes 51 may cause false ZCPs when their amplitudes are big enough. But because they are not caused by the phase back EMF generated by the movement of the rotor with reference to the stator, these ZCPs are not considered as true ZCPs. As such these voltage spikes 51 generated by the switching-off of the switches for the phase commutations are referred to as false ZCPs.
Referring to FIG. 4, the ZCP detection module 35 comprises a ZCP level detection circuit 40 which receives input from the terminal voltages and the neutral voltage to generate a plurality of ZCP level outputs (ZA, ZB, ZC) corresponding to each of the phase voltages of the BLDC motor 20. FIG. 5(d) shows the output ZA. The ZCP level outputs comprise rising and falling edges indicating a change of state when the phase voltages rise and fall through a zero values indicating a ZCP.
Referring to FIGS. 6(a), 6(b) and 6(c), the respective ZCP level outputs (ZA, ZB, ZC) of each of the three phases (A, B, C) of the BLOC motor 20 are shown (note that the horizontal time scale of FIG. 6 is not the same as in FIG. 5). The ZCP level outputs are received by a pulse generator 42 which detects and consolidates the falling and rising edges of all the ZCP outputs and generates a ZCP pulse signal (PZABC) comprising a pulse at each falling or rising edge of all the ZCP level outputs 41. PZABC is shown in FIG. 6(d), where each of the pulses represents an occurrence of a ZCP. The pulses are numbered 1 to 18. It should be noted that the sum of pulses during one electrical cycle may be from 6 ZCP pulses without false ZCP pulses to 18 ZCP pulses with 12 false ZCP pulses, which will depend on the motor parameters and its operation status. Referring again to FIG. 3, the unit 44 removes some of the false ZCP pulses using a first false ZMP masking signal, to form a first masked ZMP signal (PZM). Then the state comparator 48 removes more of the false ZCP pulses, to form a "true ZMP signal" (ZTABC).
The proposed method can precisely detect the magnet pole-pairs pulses per mechanical revolution. As discussed the number of ZCP pulses per revolution for a motor with 3 magnet pole-pairs is 18, and more generally the number of such pulses per revolution is 6 times the number of magnet pole-pairs. This is counting all the false ZCPs. For example, there are 36 pulses per revolution for an HDD spindle motor with 6 magnet pole-pairs, and 24 pulses for a motor with 4 magnet pole-pairs. However, according to the testing standard of HDD manufacture, the runout measurement needs at least 256 pulses per revolution. Thus, the number of direct detected pulses through the zero-crossing method of U.S. Pat. No. 6,879,124B1 is too low, although it is much better than the conventional one pulse per revolution.
Therefore, the major objective of this invention is to develop a new runout method which eliminates the NRRO error dependencies on the A/D convention sampling rate and PLL rotor position phase shift.

Runout measurement for devices having a rotating body

Agency for Science, Technology and Research


A tape guide for use in a magnetic tape cassette for guiding the magnetic tape includes a cylindrical member having a slit extending along its length. The slit defines first and second edge forces that face each other. In one embodiment, a plurality of tabs are connected to the first and second edge faces of the cylindrical member and extend towards the oppositely positioned edge face. The tabs overlap one another and serve to inhibit the tape guide from becoming interlocked with another tape guide. In another embodiment, a plurality of outdented portions extend from both edge faces and each outdented portion is positioned opposite to an indented portion on the opposite edge face.

The present invention relates to videotape cassettes containing magnetic tapes. More particularly, the present invention concerns a tape guide that is adapted to be positioned on the interior of the videotape cassette for guiding the magnetic tape as it passes from spool to spool.
Tape guides are a necessary part of every videotape cassette in order to ensure that the tape is properly guided and fed to the access opening at the front edge of the videotape cassette when the cassette is inserted into the tape deck for playing. The number of tape guides produced annually in order to meet the needs of the magnetic tape cassette manufacturing industry is enormously large. At the very least, the number of tape guides produced annually is in the neighborhood of several hundred million. Thus, it can be readily seen that any cost reduction that can be achieved with respect to the manufacture of a single tape guide can result in significant overall cost savings when considered in light of the total number of tape guides manufactured.
Typically, a hollow stand-alone tape guide for use in a videotape cassette is manufactured from stainless steel having a thickness of approximately 0.021-0.022 inches and in some cases, as thin as 0.015 inches. After the tape guide has been manufactured from the aforementioned material, it is subjected to chemical treatment as well as polishing and finishing operations in order to ensure that the exterior finish on the tape guides is smooth and free of any burrs or other foreign material and so smooth that it does not adversely affect magnetic tape sliding on its surface.
The magnetic tape contained in the videotape cassette is made of a highly sensitive material that can be very easily damaged through contact with rough surfaces and the like. Thus, the aforementioned chemical treatment and polishing and finishing operations are necessary in order to produce a tape guide whose exterior surface has a very high quality finish. In that way, the magnetic tape that passes around the tape guide will not become damaged as a result of contact with burrs or other types of foreign objects located on the exterior surface of the tape guide.
The finish required on the exterior surface of the tape guide, otherwise described as the surface roughness, can be expressed numerically in microinches. The numerical designation represents the arithmetic average deviation of the exterior surface from the mean line in a profile. The desired roughness for the exterior surface of a tape guide for use in guiding the magnetic tape in a videotape cassette should preferably be about eight microinches. It is rather evident that such a smooth, high quality surface finish requires extensive chemical treatment and finishing and polishing which can significantly increase the cost associated with producing the tape guide.
From the foregoing discussion, it can be seen that it would be highly desirable to manufacture a tape guide for use in a videotape cassette that possesses all of the necessary physical properties and structural features required of the tape guide but which is thinner. The manufacture of a thinner tape guide would permit the realization of substantial cost savings.
The manufacture of a tape guide from thinner material does, however, raise a concern that when the tape guide interacts with another tape guide such as during chemical treatment, polishing, finishing or handling of the tape guide, the two tape guides will become interlocked with one another. When a tape guide is manufactured as a one piece unit with a slit extending longitudinally along its length, a gap is formed in the unit as a result of the slit. In prior art stand-alone tape guides, the thickness of the material used to manufacture the tape guides was greater than the width of the gap. Hence, it was quite unlikely that one tape guide would become interlocked with another tape guide because the tape guide was not thin enough to fit into the gap formed by the slit.
However, the manufacture of a tape guide from much thinner material raises the possibility that the tape guide will become interlocked with another tape guide during the finishing, chemical treatment and handling of the tape guide because the thickness of the material is less than the width of the gap in the tape guide formed by the slit. Since the thickness of the material used to manufacture the tape guide is less than the width of the gap formed by the slit, it is highly probable that while the tape guide is interacting with other tape guides, one tape guide will be pushed into the slit in another tape guide to thereby result in the two tape guides becoming interlocked with one another.
The problems resulting from interlocked tape guides are readily apparent. The time and cost associated with attempting to separate the interlocked tape guides are highly undesirable. Further, in light of the smooth and high quality exterior finish that is required of the tape guides in order to avoid damaging the magnetic tape, there exists the possibility that the interlocking of two tape guides will cause damage to the exterior surface of the tape guides. Similar damage may result from any attempt to separate the tape guides after they have become interlocked.
It can be seen from the foregoing discussion that there exists a need in the art for a tape guide that is manufactured from thinner material so as to be less expensive. It is further apparent that there exists a need for a thinner, less expensive tape guide that is not susceptible to becoming interlocked with other tape guides.
The aforementioned problems are overcome and the foregoing objectives are achieved by the tape guide according to the present invention. The tape guide includes a substantially tubular, longitudinally extending member having first and second oppositely located ends and having interior and exterior surfaces. A slit extends along the entire length of the substantially tubular member to define first and second spaced apart and facing edge faces. An arrangement is attached to the substantially tubular member for inhibiting other tape guides from extending through the slit and becoming interlocked with the substantially tubular member. A groove can be located in each end of the substantially tubular member for properly orienting the tap guide when it is positioned in the magnetic tape cassette.
One embodiment of the arrangement for inhibiting other tape guides from extending through the slit in the cylindrical member includes a plurality of first tabs connected to the first edge face of the substantially tubular member and extending toward the second edge face and a plurality of second tabs connected to the second edge face of the substantially tubular member and extending towards the first edge face. Each one of the first tabs overlaps one of the second tabs and slots are provided adjacent the first tabs for slidably receiving the second tabs while slots are provided adjacent the second tabs for slidably receiving the first tabs.
An additional embodiment of the arrangement for inhibiting another tape guide from extending through the slit in the cylindrical member includes outdented portions extending from the first edge face that are positioned opposite to indented portions in the second edge face and outdented portions extending from the second edge face that are positioned opposite to indented portions in the first edge face.

Tape guide for guiding magnetic tape in a videotape cassette