Apparatus and method for determining a flow count
AssigneeDieterich Technology Holding Corp.
InventorAlvin E. Brown
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus for determining a flow count in an ultrasonic flow meter has an upstream oscillator (22) with an upstream signal (24) having a period proportional to an upstream transit time and a downstream oscillator (26) with a downstream signal (28) having a period proportional to a downstream transit time. The upstream signal (24) is coupled to a positive increment input (30) of a counter (32) and the downstream signal (28) is coupled to a negative increment input (36) the counter (32).
Claims21
An apparatus for determining a flow count in an ultrasonic flow meter comprising:
- an upstream oscillator having an upstream signal with a period proportional to an upstream transit time;
- a downstream oscillator having a downstream signal with a period proportional to a downstream transit time;
- and
- a counter having a positive increment input coupled to the upstream signal, a negative increment input coupled to the downstream signal and an output with a counter signal proportional to the flow count.
The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the output of the latch is coupled to a microprocessor.
A method for determining a flow data count in an ultrasonic flow meter, comprising the steps of:
- (a) adjusting a period of an upstream signal to be an integer divisor of an upstream transit time;
- (b) adjusting a period of a downstream signal to be an integer divisor of a downstream transit time;
- (c) counting the periods of the upstream signal to form an up count;
- (d) counting the periods of the downstream signal to form a down count;
- and
- (e) subtracting the down count from the up count to form a count signal proportional to the flow data count.
An apparatus for determining a flow data count in an ultrasonic flow meter, comprising:
- an up-down counter having a positive increment input coupled to an upstream signal and a negative increment input coupled a downstream signal;
- and
- a latch circuit coupled to an output of the counter.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.