Abstract:
The present invention relates to a connector configured as a fastening element. Some embodiments are in the form of a wearable "smart" electrical connector and associated connector system in the form of a modular network, which for the first time integrates electronics into protective clothing in a body-conformable and comfortable fashion. It has these unique features: wearability compatible with existing and future military/civilian vests/uniforms; a button-like snap-fastener that can be snapped and unsnapped "blindly" with one hand; and resilience to harsh temperature/humidity, chemicals, water and laundering. Another embodiment is employed in a carton-centric system to indicate tampering with the carton during transit.
Abstract:
Methods and apparatuses for still image compression, video compression and automatic target recognition are disclosed. The method of still image compression uses isomorphic singular manifold projection whereby surfaces of objects having singular manifold representations are represented by best match canonical polynomials to arrive at a model representation. The model representation is compared with the original representation to arrive at a difference. If the difference exceeds a predetermined threshold, the difference data are saved and compressed using standard lossy compression. The coefficients from the best match polynomial together with the difference data, if any, are then compressed using lossless compression. The method of motion estimation for enhanced video compression sends I frames on an "as-needed" basis, based on comparing the error between segments of a current frame and a predicted frame. If the error exceeds a predetermined threshold, which can be based on program content, the next frame sent will be an I frame. The method of automatic target recognition (ATR) including tracking, zooming, and image enhancement, uses isomorphic singular manifold projection to separate texture and sculpture portions of an image. Soft ATR is then used on the sculptured portion and hard ATR is used on the texture portion.
Abstract:
One subject of this invention is the development of a novel region of interest (ROI) method, or Frame Segmentation Method that can be provided within a video stream, in real-time, or more precisely within a few milliseconds of video frame duration of 30 msec, or even in the sub-millisecond range. This video frame segmentation is the basis of Pre-ATR-based Ultra-Real-Time (PATURT) video compression. Still other subjects of this invention are morphing compression, and watermarking, also based on the PATURT. The applications of the PATURT innovation include ROI-based real-time video recording that has special applications for aircraft pilot/cockpit video recording in "black-box" devices, recording aircraft accidents, or catastrophes. Such black-box devices usually need to pass high impact (3400 g), high temperature (1100°C, in 1 h), and other harsh environmental tests. In this invention, they also have the capability of reporting the last cockpit events up to 0.5 seconds before an accident, including all cockpit sensor readings, as well as pilots' behavior, the latter with fully scrambled and non-recoverable facial information. Further applications include video surveillance. The latter can be also applied to missile defense (recognizing real target or real missile, from false targets (decoys)), or to other Ultra-Real-Time (URT) civilian and military scenarios.
Abstract:
An improved stacked rotary connector assembly with a pair of rings (figure 2) that are split (figure 3) so that either ring may be removed from the stacked connector assembly without requiring removal of any other rotary connector and without disturbin the input/output buses of the assembly.
Abstract:
A method of rapid (Fig. 14A) prototyping a lighting system (Fig. 11) which is at least one of folded path (Fig. 18) and multifaceted (Fig. 19) includes determining output power of the lighting system by calculating phase space density (Fig. 7).
Abstract:
A method of rapid prototyping a lighting system which is at least one of folded path and multifaceted includes determining output power of the lighting system by calculating phase space density. A method of rapid prototyping a lighting system comprises ray tracing the lighting system, determining photometric quantities which describe the lighting system based on the ray tracing step, and providing a stereoscopic three-dimensional rendering of the lighting system based on the determining step. Advantageously, three-dimensional renderings promotes rapid prototyping by revealing any hidden pseudo-image artifacts in a lighting system before the lighting system is actually fabricated. A computer system for rapid prototyping a lighting system comprises a plurality of slave processors networked to a host processor. The slave processor and the master processor cooperate to ray trace the lighting system, and the slave processors perform substantially homogeneous independent tasks. Advantageously, the computer architecture allows the homogeneous independent tasks to be distributed to the plurality of slave computers, so that the overall amount of time required to perform the tasks is drastically reduced. Again, this promotes rapide prototyping by decreasing the amount of computational time required to generate useful information about a prototype lighting system.