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US 4,375,611 AGranted
Protected servomechanism
AssigneeBurroughs Corporation
InventorGeorge H. Greig
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A positioning servomechanism, which is liable to damage, or positions other equipment which is liable to damage if extremeties in its positioning locus are encountered at speed, is protected against uncontrolled and catastrophic acceleration towards these extremeties by the provision of apparatus which shuts off power to the servomechanism in the event of its drive output exceeding a predetermined limit, indicative of saturation, for more than a predetermined time period, power being restored by the application of an external signal.
Claims10
A positioning servomechanism comprising:
- a power amplifier providing motive energy to a position-controller load movable along a path including an endstop;
- an inhibitor for causing said amplifier to cease providing said motive energy in response to a control input;
- a monitor having the output level of said amplifier coupled as its output;
- said monitor being operable to compare said output level against an upper limit and a lower limit, to provide an output indicative of said level having been outside said upper or lower limits for longer than a predetermined period said predetermined period being shorter than the time required for said load to acquire sufficient kinetic energy to destructively collide with said endstop, and to provide said output as said control input to said inhibitor, such that, upon receipt of said output from said monitor, said inhibitor causes said amplifier to cease providing said motive energy.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.