Recent Patents on Engineering - Volume 3, Issue 3, 2009

In recent years, significant emphasis has been devoted to progresses in the field of on-board trajectory generation and tracking for aircraft guidance along specified waypoints. Research in this area was mainly driven by the request of improved on-board autonomy for both unmanned aerial systems and manned civil aircrafts. Several algorithms and systems have been developed and patented in this field, addressing both 3D waypoints, which are specified in terms of their three dimensional coordinates and, more recently, 4D waypoints, which also include a required time to arrival. Of course, patents proposed for 3D/4D trajectory management systems are characterized by their key features (use of 3D or 4D constraints, of different waypoint capture concepts, and so on) and by different applications and algorithms. In this paper, a review is performed of the most relevant patents presented in recent years in this field. This review considers the various problems, emphasizing main advantages and weaknesses of the proposed solutions and suggesting some possible future developments.

Wafer-Handling robot, an indispensable device in the Integrated Circuits manufacturing, can transfer and align wafers during the different working procedures. It has high speed, high reliability and super precision, and the utility of it realizes the automation and least contamination in wafer productions. This paper reviews various recent patents in all types of the wafer-handling robots including frog-leg robots, SCARA robots and four-bar linkage robots, and introduces the mechanisms and functions of them in detail. The list of the patents reviewed is by no means complete or extensive, while it shows however the extent of the subjects covered in patents in this area during several years from 2001 up to now. The paper concludes a description of the future development expected in the subjects covered.

The patents presented in this paper relate to power generating apparatus suitable for use in extracting energy from the movement of water, particularly tidal movement. This type of energy is generated by the relative motion of the Earth, Sun and the Moon, which interact via gravitational forces. Periodic changes of water levels, and associated tidal currents, are due to the gravitational attraction by the Sun and Moon. Tidal power generating systems have been studied for a number of years both in the form of barrages (similar to conventional hydroelectric dams in that the power extraction depends on the hydrostatic head), as well as tidal devices which exploit directly the kinetic energy of tidal streams. Modern advances in turbine technology may eventually see large amounts of power generated from the ocean, more precisely tidal currents, which is covered by the more general term “marine current power”. The work starts by examining the role played by Computational Fluid Dynamics in the prediction of the flow in these devices. In addition it reviews some recent and important patents relevant to this type of tidal devices, highlighting the significance and limitations of the patents reviewed. The paper concludes by highlighting current and future developments in the field.

Micro-combustion is being investigated for potential application in aerospace propulsion, electricity generation and heating. Simultaneously to studies focusing on scientific aspects of micro-combustion, inventions concerned with micro-combustor configurations and methods of carrying out sustained micro-combustion in them have appeared in the recent past. In order to gauge the current state of art in this important area, and also to provide a concise summary of some significant technological developments to date, patented inventions on micro-combustion and its applications are reviewed in this paper. Key features of the inventions tentatively classified according to the three application areas are described while revealing their significance by carrying out a comparative study of patents and non-patent literature. This study considers performance parameters, scope of envisaged applications and complexity of configuration. Allied areas of micro-machining (MM) and electricity generation have also been discussed. A major objective is to identify factors, which could decide future progress of micro-combustion, and to this end; the review indicates that low achievable overall efficiency is a major bottleneck in application of micro-combustion technology. Consequently, further development of reasonably tested devices will depend upon progress made in the down-stream energy converters. Finally, an outlook on the future developments is also presented.

Measuring the contact pressure between a structure and the surrounding ground is essential for the analysis and design of different geotechnical engineering systems (e.g. foundations, underground tunnels, buried pipes, vertical shafts and retaining walls). Several devices and techniques have been recently developed to facilitate the measurement and monitoring of contact soil pressure. These devices range from stiff pressure cells that measure the soil pressure against a structure at specific locations to flexible tactile sensors that can track the pressure changes continuously over a large contact area. This paper presents a review of selected devices and techniques commonly used to measure contact pressure in different soil-structure interaction problems. Selected US and international patents of relevance to contact pressure measurement in geotechnical engineering are referenced. A comparison between the different measurement techniques with respect to their applicability and limitations is also presented.

Riveting is the most common method of assembling sheet metal parts which are widely used in the assembly of aircraft and other areas. The rivet can be divided into two types: manual and automatic. There are many parameters associated with a riveting process that directly affect the quality of rivets including squeeze force, rivet length, rivet diameter, and hole diameter tolerance. So it's very important that each component of a rivet has high reliability and precision to ensure the stability during the riveting process. This paper reviews various recent patents in the key components of both types of rivets and various applications. The patents reviewed concern a period extending from the years 2000 up to date. The applications concern mainly both types of integrated rivets covering the area connected with the production of aircraft, auto and other industrial mechanism using modernization that has reached by material replacing, geometry, and embedding additional units into main design The list of patents reviewed is by no means complete or extensive it shows however the extent of the subjects covered in patents in this area during the last five years. The paper concludes with a description of the future developments expected in the subjects covered.

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. These are recent patents categorized by significant fields of engineering and are relevant to the articles published in this issue.