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Inventor: Richard Anderson, Lori Costello, Charles Eastlake, Glenn Geiner

A propeller-driven aircraft powered by either an internal combustion engine or an electric motor. The parallel system hybrid aircraft can take off with the internal combustion engine and climb to a cruising altitude. The internal combustion engine can then be turned off and the electric motor turned on to power the aircraft's propeller. The aircraft is capable of alternating operation between the electric motor and internal combustion engine as often as required at altitude. The aircraft can be landed using either the internal combustion engine or the electric motor. The transition of power from the internal combustion engine to the electric motor and back is performed through a hybrid clutch and pulley assembly that interconnects the internal combustion engine propeller flange to the propeller driveshaft. The electric motor is connected to the hybrid assembly through belts and sheaves. The electric motor throttle is controlled in the cockpit.

Inventor: Richard Anderson, Charles Eastlake, Matt Gonitzke, Glenn Geiner

A hybrid clutch assembly is inserted between an internal combustion engine and the propeller of an aircraft to provide a hybrid-powered aircraft. The hybrid clutch assembly allows a direct current (DC) electric motor to be attached to the hybrid clutch assembly using drive belts. The hybrid clutch assembly allows the internal combustion engine to transmit power to the aircraft's propeller and freely spin the DC motor. The DC motor can transmit power to the aircraft's propeller without turning the internal combustion engine. The hybrid clutch assembly independently allows either the internal combustion engine or the DC motor in parallel to power the aircraft's propeller. The hybrid clutch assembly includes a hybrid clutch, a drive belt housing, a hybrid clutch assembly shaft and an adapter plate. The hybrid clutch connects to the drive belt housing a hybrid clutch assembly shaft. The adapter plate enables the connection of the hybrid clutch to the internal combustion engine propeller flange. The drive belt housing enables the connection of the hybrid clutch to the propeller. The DC motor is connected to the drive belt housing drive belts.

Inventor: William C. Barott

A communication method and system for communication utilizing modulation of digital signals, such as by targets and/or by use of low-complexity tags, is presented. Targets may include any device or object that may alter signals, and tags can include a device with the ability to reflect and/or alter the properties of the signals and, in doing so, impose specific modulations on or alterations of such signals. Modulations can be sensed or detected using a receiver or receivers implementing processing algorithms derived from passive radar detection operations or other processes.

Inventor: Vinod Gehlot, Magdy S. Attia

A multi-stage axial compressor for counter rotation. A first series of rotor blade assemblies is mounted on and rotates with the driveshaft, each rotor blade assembly of the first series comprising a rotating stage of the multi-stage axial compressor. A second series of rotor blade assemblies provides a counter-rotating stage of the multi-stage axial compressor. An accessory drive links the second series of rotor blade assemblies to the driveshaft and causes counter-rotation of the second series of rotor blade assemblies.

Inventor: Vinod Gehlot, Magdy S. Attia, Divyam Garg

A multi-stage axial compressor incorporating a counter-rotational movement is provided with a series of rotors mounted along and driven by a driveshaft, and a geared counter-rotating outer casing. A planetary gear system is assembled along a static casing, which can be assembled as a forward or aft casing for the compressor. The bearings of the planetary gear system typically will be aligned concentrically with a center rotor drum assembly mounted along the single driveshaft. The counter-rotating drum assembly will be assembled over the rotor drum assembly and will be engaged by the forward and aft casings so as to provide for counter-rotation of selected ones of the rotors driven by the driveshaft of the compressor.

Inventor: Domenic Barsotti, Sandra Boetcher 

A system of wake control for a ground vehicle to help promote increased fuel efficiencies of the ground vehicle by modifying an air flow wake generated during the movement of the vehicle in a forward direction. The system includes at least one slot jet configured to be located along a rear profile portion of the ground vehicle. The at least one slot jet is configured to provide a continuous flow of air at a non-zero velocity when the ground vehicle is moving in a forward direction, the non-zero velocity being at least partially directed in a rearward direction with an output velocity less than a velocity at which the ground vehicle is moving in the forward direction, but sufficient to modify the air flow wake generated by the movement of the ground vehicle in the forward direction.

Inventor: Vladimi V. Golubev, William MacKunis

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is provided with a plurality of synthetic jet actuators and a nonlinear robust controller. The controller compensates for uncertainty in a mathematical model that describes the function of the synthetic jet actuators. Compensation is provided by the use of constant feedforward best guess estimates that eliminate the need for more highly computationally burdensome approaches, such as the use of time-varying adaptive parameter estimation algorithms.

Inventor: David Sypeck

A vented honeycomb structure with a plurality of honeycomb cells arranged in a hierarchical order and having a plurality of truss walls, each truss wall including a plurality of members. The vented honeycomb structure is fabricated by joining a plurality of sheets of trusses using any one of an expansion, a corrugation and a slotting process. Fabrication can also occur by deposition, casting, additive, extrusion or aligning and joining methods. The honeycomb cells, truss walls, truss wall openings and truss wall members can be functionally graded.

Inventor: Balaji Sivasubramanian, Leander Paul, Sathya Gangadharan

This disclosure includes a hybrid magneto-active membrane, which can be used as part of a Magneto-active Propellant Management Device (MAPMD), to actively control free surface effects of liquid materials, such as fuels, and to reduce fuel slosh. The disclosed MAPMD merges aspects of a diaphragm membrane with a magneto-active inlay to control the membrane during in-flight conditions.

Inventor: Daw Won Kim, Rudy L. Baum, Vijay Santhanam, Balaji Sivasubramanian, Sathya Gangadharan

This disclosure provides a system for damping slosh of a liquid within a tank, a baffle for use in the system and a method of damping slosh using the system. The system includes a plurality of baffles. Each baffle has a body configured to substantially float upon the liquid. Each baffle also has an activation material received along at least a portion of the body. The activation material is magnetically reactive, provided in a quantity sufficient to enable the body to be manipulated in the presence of a magnetic field (M). The system further includes an actuator configured to provide the magnetic field (M).

Inventor: Michael S. Potash, Albert D. Helfrick

A hot wire anemometer circuit has a calibration subcircuit and an operation subcircuit, which are selectively invoked via a user-activated mode switch. The calibrate subcircuit includes a detector configured to compare an amplified sensor voltage with an amplified drive voltage and output an indicator signal when the two voltages match. The drive voltage is derived from a user-adjusted drive resistance of a bridge subcircuit. The operating circuit includes a feedback loop that provides a signal to a bridge node of a bridge circuit. After a sensor is connected to the anemometer circuit, the drive resistance is adjusted until the indicator signal is produced, signifying that the circuit is tuned and impedances are matched to prevent oscillations. A slewing network protects the sensor by shorting the drive resistance upon switching the anemometer circuit to the calibrate mode from the operate mode, and gradually restoring the drive resistance when switching back.

Inventor: Akhan Almagambetov, Holly Renee Ross

A Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementation of a multiplier topology can provide a considerable increase in computation performance and cost benefit as compared to other approaches, particularly for large bit widths (e.g., for multiplication of large-bit numbers). A lack of sufficient input/output (I/O) ports on the FPGA for a particular bit width can be remedied by implementing large-bit number multiplications in a bit-serial fashion. The bit-serial multiplier topologies described herein can provide a relatively small footprint as compared to other approaches. An FPGA-implemented bit-serial multiplier can improve the operation of a computing system, for example, by offloading binary multiplication operations from a general-purpose processor.

Inventor: Sirani Kanchana Mututhanthrige Perera

System and techniques for reduced multiplicative complexity discrete cosine transform (DCT) circuitry are described herein. An input data set can be received and, upon the input data set, a self-recursive DCT technique can be performed to produce a transformed data set. Here, the self-recursive DCT technique is based on a product of factors of a specified type of DCT technique. Recursive components of the technique are of the same DCT type as that of the DCT technique. The transformed data set can then be produced for a data consumer.

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Inventor: Lenny Gartenberg, Richard P. Anderson, Borja Martos

A system and method of noise mitigation for hybrid and electric aircraft, the aircraft having a controllable pitch propeller or rotor(s) with a plurality of blades. The propeller or rotor(s) are driven by a drive system to provide thrust for the aircraft, and the blades of the propeller or rotor(s) are further movable about the pivot axis to vary the pitch thereof. A controller on-board the aircraft is operable to cause rotation or movement of the blades of the propeller or rotor(s) about their pivot axis to alter and/or focus at least one aspect of the propeller generated noise to reduce or mitigate such noise while maintaining a substantially constant thrust, altitude, and/or air speed of the aircraft.

Inventor: Daewon Kim

A helical dielectric elastomer actuator (HDEA) can include a first dielectric region comprising an elastomer defining a helix. In an example, a dielectric material can be deposited, and a compliant conductive material can be deposited, such as using an additive manufacturing approach, to provide an HDEA. In an example where the HDEA has multiple mechanical degrees of freedom, at least two compliant conductive regions can be located on a first surface of the first dielectric region, and at least one compliant conductive region can be located on an opposite second surface of the first dielectric region. For such an example, at least two compliant conductive regions can be arranged to be energized with respect to at least one compliant conductive region in a manner providing at least two mechanical degrees of freedom for operation of the HDEA.