Patents

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Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)

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NPS has an extensive portfolio of over 100 patents covering important technological developments in a wide variety of scientific and engineering disciplines. All of these inventions are available for licensing. https://nps.edu/web/research/patents

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 205

Jet Excitation By an Oscillating Vane
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 1983-11-08) Platzer, Maximilian F.; Simmons, John M.; Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)
To achieve rapid mixing between a jet flow and its surrounding medium a vane is mounted in the jet downstream of the jet nozzle exit. The vane is oscillated in either pitch or plunge by an appropriate excitation mechanism at a constant. frequency. The amplitude of oscillation is typically only a few degrees. The oscillation frequency may be varied to control the entrainment rate.
Dynamically Tilting Flat Table to Impart a Time-Varying Gravity-Induced Acceleration on a Floating Spacecraft Simulator
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 2019-05-21) Virgili-Llop, Josep; Zappulla, Richard Salvatore II; Romano, Marcello; Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)
Disclosed is a planar test bed comprising a planar surface and further comprising mechanical couplings in mechanical communication with the planar table and the supporting legs. The mechanical couplings are translatable to provide three degrees of freedom for orientation of the planar surface. A processor receives position and velocity information describing an object on the planar surface, and calculates a relative acceleration typically using a function aR=f(t,xR,v R,μ,). The processor communicates with the mechanical couplings to establish an orientation where a local gravity vector projects onto the planar surface and generates acceleration with magnitude and direction substantially equal to the desired acceleration aR The operations occur in cyclic fashion so the desired accelerations and planar orientations are updated as an object transits over the planar surface.
Anchor System, Method and Mechanism for an Underwater Vehicle
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 2025-08-05) Eldred, Ross Anthony; Office of Research and Innovation
Disclosed is a method and system to provide a Resetting Anchor/ Antenna Tether Mechanism (RAATM) to provide, according to an exemplary embodiment, dual anchoring and antenna capabilities to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The RAATM is resettable; an AUV can anchor at one location for a period of time, retrieve the anchor, move to a new location, and redeploy the anchor. Furthermore, the RAATM tether may also be used as an antenna for radio communications while deployed; this may allow smaller AUVs to accomplish missions that would otherwise require larger AUVs with dedicated antennas.
Electric Current Induced Liquid Metal Flow and Metallic Conformal Coating of Conductive Templates
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 2010-10-12) Dutta, Indranath; Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)
A conformal metallic layer is applied to a selected region of a substrate by forming a pattern of electrically conductive lines on the substrate, placing a bead of a selected metal on the substrate at an edge of the region selected for coating, and passing an electric current through the bead and through conductive lines that extend over the region of the substrate selected for coating with the electric current having a current density sufficient to melt the bead so that metallic material therefrom flows over the conductive lines to form the coating. A pair of electrically conductive connectors is placed in contact with the electrically conductive lines, and an electric power supply is connected to the pair of electrically conductive connectors such that electric current passes through the bead, melts the bead to form a liquid metal, and carries the liquid metal in a continuous stream along the conductive lines, coating the conductive lines conformally in the process.
Water Submersion Detection Switch
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 2024-04-30) Gamache, Raymond Mark; Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)
A water submersion detection system that may include a buoyant device having a conductive surface, and a housing enclosing the buoyant device and having conductive elements. The conductive elements may include a first set of one or more nonadjacent conductive elements that are electrically connected, and a second set of one or more nonadjacent conductive elements that are electrically connected. The system may include a submersion alert device that activates responsive to the buoyant device contacting the housing.
Two-Phase Dynamic Logic Circuits for Gallium Arsenice Complementary HIGFET Fabrication
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 2000-11-21) Fouts, Douglas Jai; Shehata, Khaled Ali; Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)
A two-phase dynamic logic circuit for complementary GaAs HIGFET fabrication processes has a precharge transistor connected between a precharge voltage source and an output node of the logic circuit. The precharge transistor is controlled by a clock signal such that the output node precharges when the clock signal is low and is isolated from the precharge voltage source when the clock signal is high. An evaluate transistor connected to the output node and an NFET logic block has a first terminal connected to the evaluate transistor such that the evaluate transistor is between the NFET logic block and the output node. A second terminal of the logic block is connected to a voltage source and a data input terminal that is arranged to receive data input signals. The NFET logic block includes on or more transistor(s) is arranged to generate a logic value. The evaluate transistor is controlled by the clock signal such that when the clock signal is low, the output node is isolated form the NFET logic block, and when the clock signal is high, the logic value generated by the logic block is allowed to determine the voltage on the output node of the logic circuit. A pass-gate is arranged to receive an input signal and conditionally pass the input signal to the gate(s) of the transistor(s) in the NFET logic block under the control of the clock signal such that the input is allowed to influence the gate voltage of the evaluation transistor when the clock signal is low, but is not allowed to influence the gate voltage of the transistor(s) in the logic block when the clock signal is high.
Method for Additive Manufacturing Using PH and Potential Controlled Powder Solidification
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 2016-02-02) Johannes, Andrew C.; Osswald, Sebastian; Brewer, Luke N.; Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)
A powder consolidation method and apparatus make use of corrosion processes occurring on surfaces of metal particles to consolidate a metal-containing powder into a formed body. The method includes contacting metal particles with an acidic or basic liquid at a pH and potential at which dessolution of metal from the particles and reduction of soluble metal-containing ions to metal on surfaces of the particles can co-occur, such that the metal powder agglomerates to form a body.
Fibrous Composite Failure Criteria with Material Degradation for Finite Element Solvers
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 2023-01-17) Darcy, Joseph; Kwon, Young Wuk; Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)
A method and system for modeling fibrous composites. Initially, material properties are obtained for a model of a fibrous composite, where the model includes integration points and unit cells. For each integration point, composite level stresses and strains are determined based on the material properties, the composite level stresses and strains are decomposed into component level stresses and strains for the integration point, the component level stresses and strains are used to calculate failure quotients at the integration point, an appropriate material reduction model is applied at a component level based on the failure quotients to detect a component failure, the component failure is upscaled to determine updated material properties at a composite level, and the updated material properties are incorporated into the model. At this stage, a composite failure is detected based on the updated model.
Life Preserver Locator System
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 2017-05-23) Legg, Jeffrey D.; Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)
A life preserver locator system for assisting in locating and rescuing persons located in body of water. The life preserver locator system includes a water permeable envelope attachable to a life preserving aid and having a deployable water-activated signal assembly. In one embodiment, the deployable water-activated signal assembly includes a water-activated gas inflator mechanism that on exposure to water, such as saltwater, automatically actuates to inflate a balloon. The balloon deploys from the envelope into the air on a cable attached to the life preserver locator system allowing establishment of a line of sight from a person in the water and a rescue vessel to the balloon. In one embodiment, a light emitting device, such as strobe light, on the balloon automatically activates to emit light, to assist the person in the water in locating the life preserving aid. When the person reaches the life preserving aid, the person can activate a switch on the water-activated signal assembly changing the appearance of the emitted light.
Microfluidic-Based Artificial Muscles and Method of Formation
(United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 2023-04-25) Kartalov, Emil P.; Scherer, Axel; Research and Sponsored Programs Office (RSPO)
Artificial muscles comprising a body of dielectric elastomer, wherein the body contains a pair of microfluidic networks are presented. Each microfluidic network includes a plurality of channels fluidically coupled via a manifold. The channels of the microfluidic networks are interdigitated and filled with conductive fluid such that each set of adjacent channels functions as the electrodes of an electroactive polymer (EAP) actuator. By using the manifolds as compliant wiring to energize the electrodes, artificial muscles in accordance with the present disclosure mitigate some or all of the reliability problems associated with prior-art artificial muscles.