Back to results
US 4,903,036 AGranted
VLF communication system
AssigneeWestinghouse Electric Corp.
InventorMyron S. Wheeler
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A VLF communication system which utilizes the tether of an aerostat system as the VLF antenna. The aerostat is flown at an altitude such that the tether is approximately a quarter wavelength of the operating frequency and the transmitter signal is coupled to the antenna by means of a elongated sleeve transformer surrounding the tether and including a single turn primary coupled to the transmitter with the tether acting as a single turn secondary of the transformer.
Claims7
A VLF communication system, comprising:
- (A) a VLF transmitter;
- (B) an aerostat;
- (C) a ground based aerostat deployment/retrieval mooring system;
- (D) an electromechanical tether having an electrical portion and a mechanical portion connecting said aerostat with said mooring system and being of a length H when said aerostat is deployed, where H is approximately a quarter wavelength of the operating frequency of said transmitter;
- (E) an elongated sleeve transformer having a longitudinal central aperture;
- (F) said transformer including at least a one turn primary winding passing through said central aperture;
- (G) said tether passing through said central aperture and constituting a secondary winding of said transformer;
- (H) means coupling said primary winding to said transmitter to couple a VLF signal to be transmitted to the electrical portion of said tether which operates as an antenna to radiate said signal.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.