ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,337,990, issued on June 24, was assigned to HAMILTON SUNDSTRAND Corp. (Charlotte, N.C.).
"Fiber optic actuator overload trip sensor" was invented by Darrell E. Ankney (Dixon, Ill.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An apparatus and a method of determining a state of an actuator in an airplane. The apparatus includes a mirror coupled to the actuator, wherein a location of the mirror is dependent on the state of the actuator, a shaft for moving the mirror upon a change in the state of the actuator, and a processor. Incident light is reflected off of the mirror to create a reflected light. The processor receives the reflected light from the mir...