Carrier-envelope-phase stabilization of a master oscillator optical amplifier system
Granted: June 24, 2014
Patent Number:
8760755
A laser and amplifier combination delivers a sequence of optical pulses at a predetermined pulse-repetition frequency PRF. An interferometer generates a signal representative of the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of the pulses at intervals corresponding to the PRF. The signal includes frequency components from DC to the PRF. The signal is divided into high and low frequency ranges. The high and low frequency ranges are sent to independent high frequency and low frequency control…
Compact COslab-laser
Granted: May 20, 2014
Patent Number:
8731015
A compact CO2 slab-laser is contained in a fluid cooled housing having three compartments. One compartment houses discharge electrodes and a laser resonator. Another compartment houses a radio-frequency power supply (RFPS) assembled on a fluid-cooled chill plate and an impedance-matching network. The remaining compartment houses beam-conditioning optics including a spatial filter. The housing and RFPS chill-plate are on a common coolant-fluid circuit having a single input and a single…
Output-power control apparatus for a COgas-discharge laser
Granted: May 20, 2014
Patent Number:
8731014
A carbon-dioxide CO2 gas-discharge laser is energized by the output a radio-frequency power supply (RFPS). Output-power of the laser is stabilized by adjustments of the RFPS responsive to periodic measurements of the laser output-power using detector output amplified by an amplifier. The amplifier has an offset-voltage which is subject to drift. A synchronous auto-zero arrangement is provided for canceling out the offset-voltage of the amplifier immediately prior to each periodic…
Fiber-MOPA apparatus for delivering pulses on demand
Granted: May 6, 2014
Patent Number:
8717670
A fiber-MOPA includes a seed-pulse source followed by fiber amplifier stages. The seed pulse source delivers signal pulses for performing a laser operation and delivers radiation between the seed pulses to maintain the collective average of the seed pulse power and intermediate radiation power constant. Keeping this average power constant keeps the instantaneous available gain of the fiber amplifier stages constant. This provides that the seed pulse delivery can be changed from one…
Method of measuring a volume flow rate of a controlled medium in a pipeline
Granted: April 15, 2014
Patent Number:
8695435
Method comprises transmitting and receiving ultrasound signals (USS) in and counter direction of flow (ICDF) of controlled medium in pipeline (CMP); determining times of USS transmission ICDF of CMP and difference therebetween; forming time difference code; forming array of address codes corresponding to zero crossing moments of codes of USS passed ICF of CMP; determining zero crossing moment address code for codes of USS passed ICF of CMP closest to mutual correlation function (MCF)…
Pulsed COlaser output-pulse shape and power control
Granted: April 1, 2014
Patent Number:
8687661
In order to maintain a constant laser output pulse power in a RF-energized, sealed-off, diffusion cooled, pulsed, CO2 gas-discharge laser, each laser output pulse is generated by train or burst of shorter RF pulses. When the time between laser output pulses becomes short enough that the power in one pulse would be reduced by gas-discharge heating effects of a previous pulse, power in the RF pulse trains is varied by varying the duration or duty cycle of pulses in the bursts, thereby…
Vehicle navigation using non-GPS LEO signals and on-board sensors
Granted: March 25, 2014
Patent Number:
8682581
A navigation system includes a navigation radio and a sensor onboard a vehicle. The navigation radio receives and processes low earth orbit RF signals to derive range observables for a corresponding LEO satellite. A sensor is operable to generate at least one of vehicle speed data, acceleration data, angular rate data and rotational angle data under high vehicle dynamics. The navigation radio includes a navigation code operable to obtain a position, velocity and time solution (a…
Externally frequency-converted CW hybrid MOPA
Granted: March 18, 2014
Patent Number:
8675709
A hybrid CW MOPA includes an OPS-laser resonator delivering radiation in a plurality of longitudinal lasing-modes or wavelengths. The multiple longitudinal mode output is amplified in a fiber-amplifier. Amplified lasing-modes from the fiber-amplifier are frequency-converted by an optically nonlinear crystal in a ring-resonator having the same length as the laser resonator, such that the ring-resonator is resonant for all of the amplified lasing-modes.
Unit-magnification catadioptric and catoptric projection optical systems
Granted: February 25, 2014
Patent Number:
8659823
Ring-field, catoptric and catadioptric, unit-magnification, projection optical systems having non-concentric optical surfaces are disclosed. Each system has a system axis with object and image planes on opposite sides of the system axis. The non-concentric surfaces allow for working distances of the object and image planes in excess of 100 millimeters to be achieved, with a ring-field width sufficient to allow a rectangular object-field having a long dimension in excess of 100 mm to be…
Estimation of low-amplitude echoes in a received communication signal
Granted: February 18, 2014
Patent Number:
8654827
A system and method for identifying minor echoes present in an input signal in the situation where a set of major echoes has already been identified from the input signal. The method includes: computing a spectrum F corresponding to a sum of the major echoes; computing a weighted power spectrum SM of the spectrum F; subtracting the weighted power spectrum SM from a weighted power spectrum PIN of the input signal to obtain a difference spectrum; performing a stabilized division of the…
Apparatus and method for balancing combined RF power-supplies for driving a COgas-discharge laser
Granted: February 18, 2014
Patent Number:
8654805
Radio-frequency (RF) power supply apparatus for supplying RF power to discharge electrodes of a gas-discharge laser includes a plurality of amplifier modules each having an RF output. A power combining arrangement is provided for combining the amplifier module RF-outputs into a single combined RF-output connected to the discharge electrodes. A DC power supply is connectable to or disconnectable from each of the transistor amplifier modules, separately, to allow current drawn by any of…
Short-pulse fiber-laser
Granted: February 18, 2014
Patent Number:
8654799
A mode-locked fiber laser has a resonator including a gain-fiber, a mode-locking element, and a spectrally-selective dispersion compensating device. The resonator can be a standing-wave resonator or a traveling-wave resonator. The dispersion compensating device includes only one diffraction grating combined with a lens and a minor to provide a spatial spectral spread. The numerical aperture of the gain-fiber selects which portion of the spectral spread can oscillate in the resonator.
Methods and systems for target detection
Granted: February 18, 2014
Patent Number:
8654316
Various aspects of the disclosure provide a target system that is small and low power. In one embodiment, the target system transmits an intensity modulated light beam to a target (which may be tagged with a fluorescent taggant), collects the resulting return light from the target, and separates out elastic light scatter and fluorescent light in the collected light. The intensities of the elastic light scatter and the fluorescent light are then separately detected by first and second…
Wireless transport framework with variable equalizer training
Granted: February 11, 2014
Patent Number:
8650598
A system and method for wirelessly transmitting audiovisual information. Training information may be stored in a memory. A plurality of packets may be generated, including the training information. The plurality of packets may also include audiovisual information. The plurality of packets may include first information identifying a first training pattern of a plurality of possible training patterns. The first training pattern may specify one or more locations of the training information…
Impedance-matching circuits for multi-output power supplies driving COgas-discharge lasers
Granted: February 11, 2014
Patent Number:
8648665
Electrical apparatus for connecting a radio frequency power-supply having two outputs to a load includes two radio frequency transmission-lines, each one connected to a corresponding power-supply output. A transformer arrangement connects the two transmission-lines to the load. Each transmission-line includes a series-connected pair of twelfth-wave transmission-line sections. The series-connection between the twelfth wave transmission-line sections in one transmission line is connected…
Parallel execution of trellis-based methods
Granted: February 4, 2014
Patent Number:
8644431
A receiver system and method for recovering information from a symbol data sequence Y. The symbol data sequence Y corresponds to a symbol data sequence X that is transmitted onto the channel by a transmitter. The symbol data sequence X is generated by the transmitter based on associated information bits. At the receiver, a set of two or more processors operate in parallel on two or more overlapping subsequences of the symbol data sequence Y, where each of the two or more overlapping…
Optical pumping of a solid-state gain-medium using a diode-laser bar stack with individually addressable bars
Granted: January 28, 2014
Patent Number:
8638831
A diode-laser bar stack includes a plurality of diode-laser bars having different temperature dependent peak-emission wavelengths. The stack is arranged such that the bars can be separately powered. This allows one or more of the bars to be “on” while others are “off”. A switching arrangement is described for selectively turning bars on or off, responsive to a signal representative of the temperature of the diode-laser bar stack, for providing a desired total emission spectrum.
Selective multi-modal transmission alteration
Granted: December 31, 2013
Patent Number:
8619792
System and methods for an interface alteration device that recognizes in incoming data whether certain predefined conditions exist based on condition evaluation rules, and, as appropriate, alters certain portions of the incoming data based on alteration rules. Transmission tolerance levels also define how transmission of data is to be performed so that the destination node to which the altered and/or unaltered data is transmitted will be unaware that alteration has occurred to the data…
Optically-pumped surface-emitting semiconductor laser with heat-spreading compound mirror-structure
Granted: December 17, 2013
Patent Number:
8611383
A gain-module for use in an OPS-laser includes a multilayer semiconductor gain-structure surmounting a multilayer compound mirror-structure. Within the multilayer compound mirror-structure is a relatively thick layer of diamond which serves as a heat-spreader.
Waveguide COlaser with mutiply folded resonator
Granted: December 17, 2013
Patent Number:
8611391
A gas-discharge waveguide CO2 laser has a Z-shaped folded waveguide formed by three ceramic tubes. Ends of the adjacent tubes are shaped and fitted together to form a common aperture. The tubes are held fitted together by spaced-apart parallel discharge electrodes. Four mirrors are arranged to form a laser-resonator having a longitudinal axis extending through the tubes.
