Patents
Ms. Kathy Minear & Dr. G. Pat Martin are inventors in the areas of
Widely-Spaced Adaptive Arraying, Advanced Signal and Image Processing
LARGE REFLECTOR RADAR ARRAYS, SPACE DOMAIN AWARENESS, HYPERSONIC MISSILE DEFENSE
Description: Specialized Arrays’ closed-loop widely spaced coherent transmit arraying technology for missions such as directed energy and COMM using quick deployable and VERY widely-spaced antennas.
Patent: 10,270,506
Description: SAI Closed-loop Equatorial RADAR array; Detection of ALL Earth-propagating objects; One-pass orbital characterization
Patent: 9,989,634
Description: The focus of this invention is on station-kept, synchronous orbits, particularly geosynchronous orbits (GSO), although the invention is not limited to this region of Space. Our Space Domain Awareness reflector antenna arraying technology is the ONLY method that is 100% phased locked; meaning if the system is turned ON, the antennas are precisely synchronized. During an experiment, this was proven over a 10 month period. All other arraying technologies, to date, fail to lock 100% of the components. The antennas and other critical hardware are left out. This leads to drift and pointing errors, impacting mission data and capabilities. Because our arraying technology keeps the antennas in-sync autonomously, it can be used at higher frequencies, like Ka-band, enabling 4mm particles to be detected and characterized at GEO orbits (35,786 km). Our method is called, “Self-Controlled” reflector arraying. It broke the myth that external satellites are needed to periodically, recalibrate the reflector array.
Patent: 12,184,396
Description: Protection of military and civilian assets from multiple simultaneous threats is vital. Current systems may not be able to handle a multiple simultaneous threat environment, resulting in insufficient power delivered to mitigate the threats. With a single receive (Rx) tetrahedron multi-beam phased array and one or more multi-beam transmit (Tx) units, hemispherical coverage and simultaneous threat mitigation can be performed. Applicable to hypersonic missile defense.
Patent: 11, 764,469
ANTENNA COHERENT TRANSMIT ARRAYING for COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS (2010-2012)
Description: Martin & Minear Method for Open-Loop Coherent Transmit Combining of Widely-Spaced Large Ground Reflectors
Patent: 7,969,358
Description: Method used in calibration of circuitry and fiber for open-loop model-based widely-spaced coherent transmit arraying. This method used sums and differences of sines and cosines and was NOT the method ultimately demonstrated on NASA-funded TxACE program in 2010. An alternate method was developed on government funding.
Patent: 8,170,088
Description: Method for calibration of circuitry and fiber for open-loop model-based widely-spaced coherent transmit arraying.
Patent: 12/273,839
Description: Deep space widely spaced coherent transmit method; Also called Martin & Minear Instant Return Method; Correction of atmospheric effects using model and known emitter within main beam of an element. Reduced to practice on NASA TxACE
Patent: 7,970,365
Description: Deep space widely spaced coherent transmit method; Used to refine antenna reference point locations using known emitters; Reduced to practice on NASA TxACE (government has royalty-free rights to use)
Patent: 7,855,681
WIDELY-SPACED CONFORMAL BODY COHERENT TRANSMIT ARRAYING (2010)
Description: Widely-spaced coherent transmit combining of elements on a conformal body using a model-based approach. An application is ORION spacecraft COMM. Patent was abandoned during publication.
Patent: 12/274,011
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LIDAR DATA AND ELECTRO-OPTICAL IMAGE REGISTRATION, FUSION, AND VISUALIZATION (2010-2012)
Description: Fusion of imagery with point cloud data to generate 3D ‘colorized’ models
Patent: 8,179,393
Description: Colorization of point cloud data in Hue-Saturation-Intensity space based on corresponding scene content from radiometric image data
Patent: 12/378,353
Description: Segmentation of a radiometric image for determination of color scale to use on point cloud data points
Patent: 12/617,751
Patent: 12/046,880
Description: Autonomous alignment of 3D point cloud lidar data with 2D imagery by generating filtered density images from the 3D data
Patent: 8,290,305
Description: Registration of 3D to 3D point cloud data by generating filtered density images
Patent: 12/046,862
Description: Registration of 3D to 3D point cloud data using an eigenanalysis to determine centroids of candidate features.
Patent: 12/047,066
SURFACE DETECTION USING POINT CLOUD (LIDAR) DATA
Patent: 12/706,990
SIGNAL AND IMAGE PROCESSING
Patent: 8,169,886
Patent: 8,019,015
Patent: 7,642,850
Patent: 7,435,228
Patent: 7,187,326
Patent: 7,068,219
Patent: 6,931,362
Patent: 6,917,784
Patent: 6,738,018
Patent: 6,711,528
Patent: 6,700,527
Patent: 6,397,083
Patent: 6,384,773
Patent: 6,240,290
Patent: 4,628,321
Patent: 6,147,657
Patent: 4,255,791