This invention relates to a pressure transducer adapted to transduce or convert fluid pressure into air pressure on a one-to-one basis for control or indication purposes. The transducer includes a diaphragm held between two sealing members and clamped by a transducer body against a mounting member to permit flexing of the diaphragm in either direction such as to be capable of operation in either atmospheric or vacuum environments. An adjustable nozzle in the transducer body permits adjustment of...

The present invention is directed toward providing interactive haptic collision detection between a stationary and a moving object in a virtual reality environment. A user grasps the arm of a haptic device and manipulates an object as viewed on a virtual reality display. As any portion of the manipulated object comes too close to the surface of the stationary object, the haptic device imposes feedback forces against the user's efforts that increase in magnitude as the user manipulates the object...

A method and apparatus for determining forces to be applied to a user through a haptic interface. The method includes the steps of generating a representation of an object in graphic space, sensing the position of the user in real space and calculating a force to be applied to a user in response to the user's haptic interface and the user's fiducial object. The user's fiducial object represents the location in graphic space at which the user's haptic interface would be located if the haptic inte...

A design interface tool for designing force sensations for use with a host computer and force feedback interface device. A force feedback device is connected to a host computer that displays the interface tool. Input from a user is received in the interface to select a type of force sensation to be commanded by a host computer and output by a force feedback interface device. Input, such as parameters, is then received from the user which designs and defines physical characteristics of the select...

A computerized checklist system is provided for ensuring safe and consistent operation of sophisticated equipment such as aircraft, milling machines, and other complicated systems. The checklist system includes a microprocessor having an erasable programmable read only memory for storing alphanumeric data in the form of checklist items. A display panel is provided for visual output of the checklist items, and a voice synthesizer is provided for audible output of the checklist items. The system i...

User interface devices, such as displays and keyboards, are automatically deployed using pulse-width-modulated controlled force in a first safety period. Once safe, force and speed are increased to full deployment. At full deployment, electrical braking dissipates mechanical energy and power is throttled down to hold device against deployment stop.

This electric connector includes a housing formed with a single row of holes for receiving male terminals and ends of sheathed wires connected thereto, and further formed with means for, if and when two of the housings are laid together with their two single rows of holes substantially parallel, locating them with respect to mutual sliding movement. Thereby, if it is desired to provide only a single row type connector, a single one of such housings is used by itself; but, if it is desired to pro...

A computer user interface system and method arranges a set of information hosted on a computer into a set of books, where each book includes a subset of the set of information, labels each book with a respective portion of the subset of the set of information, and selects a book from the set of books. Selecting the book from the set of books includes steps of displaying the respective portions of the books as a book document image that includes pages which correspond to the respective portions o...

A computer based browsing computer program product, system and method arranges a set of information hosted on a computer into a book or a set of books, where each book includes a subset of the set of information, labels each book with a respective portion of the subset of the set of information, and selects a book from the set of books. Selecting the book from the set of books includes steps of displaying the respective portions of the books as a book document image that includes pages which cor...

An apparatus and method for displaying flight information on a multi-functional avionics display where the display is divided into quadrants and a pop-up menu of available instrument functions to be displayed is provided within and for each of the quadrants, and the size of the display of the instrument functions is dynamically changed in response to manual and automatic stimuli.