Recent Patents on Engineering - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2011

A flash interpolator circuit inherent amplitude measurement algorithm, AMM, is described. A flash interpolation circuit converts a pair of periodic and orthogonal sine-signals into a stream of periodic - phase shifted sinusoidal signals, the amplitudes of which can be combined to produce useful information about the peak amplitude of the input sinesignals, independently of the signal's frequency. The proposed technique of amplitude measurement is suitable for automatic gain control, AGC, and the systems for automatic signal conditioning, where a flash interpolator is already a part of the integrated motion control system. An interpolation factor of 4 is shown to be sufficient for measuring amplitudes with an accuracy of 5.8 %. The patents regarding signals conditioning and interpolation are reviewed. The interpolator architecture, combined with an amplitude measuring system, has been designed, integrated as a part of the interpolator ASIC, evaluated and analyzed. The SoC ASIC for incremental optical encoders is designed and processed in 0.35 μm CMOS technology.

This paper presents an overview of the annatto agro industry by reviewing publications related to colorant technology production, the market, and the worldwide intellectual property protection. The aim was to identify solutions, technological advances and trends by observing the research and development activities and publication of patents in this area. In the last decade, the demand of annatto use in the food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries increased. Advances in technology are observed throughout the production chain, such as improvements in raw material production, seed characteristics, colorant manufacturing processes and colorant formulations with the extract; socioeconomic benefits for the production regions are also observed.

Ice slurry can be employed with advantages in many fields, including refrigeration, air conditioning, supermarket display, food process and mine cooling and so on. The most important issue concerning the ice slurry application is still its generation method, relating to the efficiency and reliability of water or aqueous solution converting to ice crystals or ice slurry. Though the ice slurry generation methods have been widely investigated, patented and employed, recent patents of ice slurry generation methods after the year of 2000 are reviewed in this article, which is mainly focused on the generation efficiency and reliability. The novel promotions on the already disclosed methods, including the scraped surface generator, the supercooling method, the direct contact generation, the vacuum ice slurry generator are introduced, expecting to provide more inspirations for the designers.

As a tool for analyzing one- and two- dimensional signals in time-frequency plane, fractional Fourier transform (FRFT) has got sound acclamation in the recent past. In this article, the developments of FRFT are presented based on the recent patents and publications. The escalation of mathematical properties of FRFT is discussed extensively. Especially, convolution, correlation, sampling and uncertainty theorems for the FRFT are included. Subsequently, due to existence of many algorithms for evaluating the discrete FRFT, a comparative analysis is made to establish the best one amongst available. Lastly, the application of FRFT (by way of implementing the identified DFRFT) in filtering, beam-forming, encryption and watermarking is highlighted.

This paper reviews the recent development of finite element method for the couple stress/strain gradient theory. Based on the second order couple stress/strain gradient theory, the frame of the C0 continuity and C1 continuity finite elements and convergence criterion as enhanced patch test are discoursed in this paper. The enhanced patch test is used to test convergence of weak C1 continuity element and the capability of C0 continuity penalty element for approaching C1 continuity element. Three couple stress penalty elements including 9-DOF triangular element (CST+BT3) and element (ALT+BT3) and 12-DOF 8-note quadrilateral element (MQ8) are adopted to compare the refined nonconforming 18-DOF triangular element (RCT9+RT9) with weak C1 continuity. Numerical results show that the C0 continuity penalty elements (CST+BT3) and (ALT+BT3) and (MQ8) cannot pass enhanced patch test and are unable to approaching the C1 continuity solution. The C1 weak continuity refined element (RCT9+RT9) can pass the enhanced patch test and possesses higher accuracy. In addition, this paper also includes some information of recent patents on the applications of couple stress/strain gradient theory.

There are some recent patents and books which consider low-pass filters, in these patents and books, there are some circuits of low-pass first order filters. In this paper the mathematical models of two different first order low-pass filters are presented. The two filters are compared using the mathematical models, the magnitudes and the slope of the Bode gain, the first order filter two [6] improves the first order filter one [7] because in the design fequency 10 Hz the magnitude of the first order filter two is more approximated to 1 than the magnitude of the first order filter one. In addition, the comparison between the behavior of the real data of experiments with real circuits and the simulations of the mathematical models for the first order low-pass filters are presented. Two different second order low-pass filters are proposed. The two filters are compared using the mathematical models, the magnitudes and the slope of the Bode gain the second order filter two improves the second order filter one because in the design fequency 10 Hz the magnitude of the second order filter two is more approximated to 1 than the magnitude of the second order filter one. In addition, the comparison between the behavior of the data of experiments with the real circuits and the simulations of the mathematical models for the second order low-pass filters are presented.

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. These recent patents are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by different engineering methods, processed and techniques involved.....