Steven T Nichols

US Patent:

48538396, Aug 1, 1989

Filed:

Sep 29, 1988

Appl. No.:

7/251665

Inventors:

Steven R. Nichols - Duluth GA
Robert C. Hyers - Tucker GA
Walter M. Stovall - Atlanta GA
Charles D. Trawick - Doraville GA

Assignee:

Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. - Atlanta GA

International Classification:

G05B 1502
G05D 320

US Classification:

36416701

Abstract:

Apparatus and methods for tracking a positioning system for antennas and other devices. Hardware of the invention contains circuitry which when given velocity information, changes its output position information at a specified rate. The hardware may also be triggered to capture a sample of such output position information to provide feedback to the firmware of the invention, which implements a position tracking algorithm. The algorithm utilizes two consecutive input position samples, the time between those samples and the feedback information corresponding to the last position input sample to calculate the velocity to be applied to the position tracking hardware until a new position input sample is available. When the new sample is available, a new velocity is calculated and applied to the hardware and the process is repeated. Between position input samples, the hardware updates the output position to correspond to the motion of the positioning system.