Back to results
US 4,667,414 AGranted
Direction-finding devices
OwnerMichael K. Russellinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
OwnerMichael K. Russellinventor
Estimating the term…
A housing defines a chamber having a spherical inside surface, and a spherical float is supported within the chamber by a liquid so that the outside surface of the float is equidistantly spaced from the top and bottom of the inside surface of the chamber. The float incorporates a permanent magnet defining diametrically-opposed opposite poles which serve to orient the float with respect to the earth's magnetic field. The liquid is magnetizable, and the float is laterally centered within the chamber by magnetic interaction between the magnet poles and the magnetizable liquid. A differential fluxgate sensing head serves to sense the relative orientation of the housing and the float in a horizontal plane and to supply an electrical output signal indicative of that orientation. A highly accurate direction-finding device is thereby produced at modest cost.
A direction-finding device comprising a housing defining a chamber having an inside bottom surface in the form of a segment of a sphere, and a float within the chamber having a bottom surface in the form of a segment of sphere spaced from the inside bottom surface of the chamber, the float incorporating a permanent magnet defining laterally-opposed opposite poles on the float which serve to orient the float with respect to the earth's magnetic field, wherein the float is freely supported within the chamber by means of a liquid, and the liquid is magnetizable so that the magnetic interaction between the same magnet poles that orient the float with respect to the earth's magnetic field, and the magnetizable liquid, acts also to laterally centre the float within the chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.